£2.4million to boost stroke services in region

12:03pm Saturday 17th May 2008

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NHS South West is to receive £2.4 million over the next three years for improvements to stroke services across the region.

The organisation is conducting a three-month review of stroke services before drawing up investment plans and target improvements in stroke services.

This may include looking at ways to speed up the response to strokes and improving access to rehabilitation services.

Liz Redfern, director of patient care and nursing for NHS South West, said: "The investment is great news for patients in the South-West as it will allow us to focus our efforts on speeding up responses to strokes, which will save more lives and improve the ability of people to return to normal life following strokes.

"We are aware that the quality of stroke services varies across the South West and we are currently embarking on a review of stroke services across the region, the outcome of which will inform how we utilise these additional resources.

"Strokes are devastating events for patients and their families and need to be treated as an emergency to ensure the best possible outcome.

"It's vitally important that we get patients into hospital as soon as possible following a stroke.

"We need to be ensuring that they are seen by a specialist and scanned promptly, before being transferred to a specialist stroke unit for the best treatment."