Stroke services shake-up given the go-ahead

HEALTH chiefs have given the green light to a shake up of stroke services.

The East Cheshire Clinical Commissioning group (CCG), which funds local healthcare in Macclesfield, is redesigning stroke rehabilitation services.

From October, stroke care will not be provided in the town but at specialist centres like Stepping Hill and Royal Stoke hospital with rehabilitation services offering patients treatment in their own home.

The move comes as the CCG has revealed it is battling to plug a £9.7m budget black hole by 2017.

Health bosses believe the changes could help around 125 patients per year, cut costs – by reducing the amount of time they spend in hospital significantly – and improve patients’ chances of survival.

But Cheshire East Council’s health and social care scrutiny committee were critical of the extra travel time that will be incurred by relatives and carers.

The new Integrated Community Stroke Team (ICST) will include psychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and nurses.

Therapy will be offered for a maximum of six months with extensions in exceptional circumstances.

The shake-up is the latest change to stroke care in the town. In March 2015, patients started being taken to specialist centres instead of Macclesfield hospital but Macclesfield hospital maintained rehabilitation services.

In October, the hospital announced it would axe rehab services. Since then, the CCG has spent £800,000 on ensuring rehab services are available until October when the new system will be introduced. A spokesman for the CCG said: “The consolidation of all inpatient services at Stockport and Stoke-on-Trent builds on an existing arrangement that already sees patients in the hyper acute phase of stroke receiving best practice care, including a clotbusting therapy called thrombolysis, in one or other of the hospitals (or Salford Royal Hospital between 11pm and 7am) within the first four hours of stroke.

“The new plans reflect strong evidence that specialist inpatient care and community rehabilitation result in fewer deaths and a quicker, more complete recovery. Patients will spend less time in hospital and more time in their own homes.”

‘Patients will spend less time in hospital and more in their own homes’