Stroke patients face longer trips in emergencies
HUNDREDS OF seriously ill patients will travel further for emergency treatment under a shake-up to cut the toll of death and disability caused by strokes in Yorkshire.
Patients from Barnsley and Rotherham will no longer be treated at their local hospitals in the crucial 72 hours after a stroke. Ambulances will instead transfer them to hospitals in Sheffield, Doncaster or Wakefield as part of moves to provide specialist care around the clock, seven days a week.
About 750 patients a year are likely to be given emergency care further afield before returning home or to their local hospital for more treatment and rehabilitation.
Health chiefs have ordered the changes over concerns about hyperacute stroke services at hospitals in Barnsley and Rotherham, which are described as “fragile”, with a growing reliance on temporary staff.
They warn that without action there is a significant risk of a deterioration in the quality and safety of care and a postcode lottery in treatment including delays in patients receiving vital brain scans and expert opinions.
Following the shake-up, patients will get immediate access to a specialist stroke doctor, with some posts shared between hospitals for the first time, and there will be more weekend working by staff.
Further changes to the provision of services are expected under a wider review of hospital care in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw, where 3,000 people suffer strokes each year.
The changes, which will cost £1.8 million, will be begin next July in Rotherham and by January 2019 in Barnsley. NHS officials have decided emergency stroke care will remain in place in Chesterfield pending a review of services in the East Midlands.
Stroke specialist Peter Anderton, regional lead on stroke care in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw, said: “I want to reassure people that the decision to make these changes is about saving lives and reducing disabilities.
“All the evidence from across the country where changes have already happened tells us this is the right solution and allows us to concentrate expert staff in the right place.
“At the moment, depending on where a patient lives in our region, and how soon they have the tests needed, they do not always have access to the recommended treatments within the critical time period.”
Similar changes will take place in coming years in other parts of Yorkshire, where stroke services were described by one national expert as “mediocre at best” as long ago as 2013. Evidence suggests centralisation of emergency stroke care in London has led to a five per cent reduction in deaths for patients three months after they fall ill.
Patients given clot-busting drugs within three hours are ten per cent more likely to live without disability. The decision in South Yorkshire comes three years after work began on the shake-up, underlining the scale of the difficulties making complex change in the NHS. Des Breen, medical director for Health and Care Working Together, which represents hospitals in the area, said: “Hyper-acute care is one part of the stroke services we provide and the wider services, from acute care to community rehabilitation, are now being looked at as part of wider work in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw to ensure we are providing the best possible care during a patient’s entire journey following a stroke.”