Hospitals could lose stroke units

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Four hospitals in Kent and Medway could lose their beleaguered stroke units under secretive plans being developed by the NHS.

As exclusively reported last month, the NHS is in the process of creating a series of Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STP), partnering up hospital trusts with local authorities and other groups to decide how patients in England will be treated in future.

The plans in Kent and Medway aim to meet rising demand, improve patient outcomes and move a huge number of services out of acute hospitals into the community. It is part of a national bid to cut at least £22 billion by 2020.

So far there has been no wider consultation.

Currently urgent care for seriously ill stroke patients is provided at seven local hospitals across eight different clinical commissioning groups. These are: Darent Valley Hospital; Medway Foundation Trust; Maidstone Hospital; Tunbridge Wells Hospital; William Harvey Hospital; Kent and Canterbury Hospital and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital.

Each unit offers specialist teams of doctors, nurses and therapists who provide 24/7 treatment to stroke victims. The care these people receive in the first 72 hours can make the difference between life and death and lifelong disability.

An urgent review and public consultation on the stroke service was launched last year after commissioning identified a catalogue of problems including poor performance, low staffing levels and outcomes for patients.

Units were found to be inconsistent and not always meeting the national benchmarks for the service.

If commissioners go ahead with the emerging model of three centres, it is likely Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW) could lose one of its two centres. The locations have not yet been decided.

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