The treatment is still only available during daytime hours on weekdays
It will be two years before a specialist procedure that can vastly improve the outcome for people who have suffered a stroke will be available 24 hours a day in Lancashire and South Cumbria, LancsLive can reveal. And it comes after a call from the Stroke Association last week for a rapid rollout of a round-the-clock thrombectomy service in the region.
However, a stroke survivor from Garstang – who missed out on having the procedure because his stroke happened on a Sunday – says that the two-year wait for the service to be available at all hours of the day and night will put patient recoveries at risk. “I was really selfish and had my stroke on a Sunday,” Phil says. “But I have no bad feelings towards the doctors and nurses. They tried to get staff in, but these people had already been working a full week and they weren’t available – and I get that. I’m not bitter about that, but I’m really angry about the commissioning of [the service].
There is also an ambition to almost double the thrombolysis rate from eight to 15 percent – equivalent to an extra 140 of the treatments annually. Figures presented by NHS bosses to a meeting of Lancashire County Council’s health scrutiny committee earlier this year estimate that at least £11,000 in combined health and social care costs could be saved for every additional patient who is given a thrombectomy.
She added: “Thrombectomy is a miracle treatment that pulls patients back from near-death and alleviates the worst effects of stroke. It’s shocking that so many patients are missing out and being saddled with unnecessary disability. There are hard-working clinicians across the stroke pathway facing an uphill struggle to provide this treatment and it’s time they got the support they need to make this happen. It really is simple – thrombectomy saves brains, saves money and changes lives.
How stroke care is changing A near £20m overhaul of stroke services in Lancashire and South Cumbria could see more than 360 additional patients discharged from hospital with reduced disability each year and slash the length of time that stroke sufferers spend on the wards, it is hoped. The NHS in the region is around halfway through a three-year investment programme, which it is also estimated could save the lives of 22 extra stroke sufferers annually.
A seven-day rehabilitation service will also ultimately be available across all sites, while ambulatory care – an approach which aims to send sufferers of the most minor strokes home the same day with the necessary support – will also operate every day of the week in Central Lancashire, Blackpool, Blackburn and Barrow.
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