HEALTH MATTERS

●● JACKI Wilkes, NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) associate director of commissioning. arrangements, as patients in the hyper-acute phase of stroke are already receiving best-practice care at the above specialist centres and at Salford Royal Hospital, rather than at the Macclesfield District General Hospital site.

The new service reflects strong evidence that specialist inpatient care and rehabilitation result in fewer deaths and a quicker, more complete recovery, enabling patients to spend less time in hospital and more time in their own homes.

As we develop our community rehab services, this will help people return home sooner, with the right support.

Our plans for acute and rehabilitative stroke services for inpatients were developed with the support of East Cheshire NHS Trust after both ourselves and the trust concluded it was no longer clinically viable to provide a local service to the required national clinical standards.

Going forward, approximately 230 people each year would receive all their inpatient care at Stepping Hill and 73 people at Royal Stoke.

Of these people, 142 could be discharged early with support, and a further 143 would benefit from ongoing care and follow-up.

I’d like to stress again that those in the hyperacute phase of stroke are already receiving treatment at our specialist centres where, among other interventions, patients have access to clot-busting thrombolysis treatment 24 hours a day, seven days a week – which was not possible previously.