Speeches

Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-09-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what mechanisms his Department has for measuring the effectiveness of the National Stroke Strategy; and if he will make a statement.

David Mowat

The National Stroke Strategy remains valid and implementation of it continues. There are, therefore, no current plans to renew the national stroke strategy. Action is being taken to ensure the progress made on stroke continues. This includes;

– publication of the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Outcomes Strategy in 2013, which includes many stroke specific strategic ambitions;

– a CVD expert forum, hosted by NHS England, to coordinate delivery of the work which was initiated in the CVD Outcomes Strategy; and

– NHS England’s National Clinical Director for stroke working with the Strategic Clinical Networks, Urgent and Emergency Care Networks, clinical commissioning groups, Sustainability and Transformation Plans, voluntary agencies and individual providers to support better commissioning and provision of stroke care.

More generally, the NHS Five Year Forward View recognises that quality of care, including stroke care, can be variable and that patients’ needs are changing and new treatment options are emerging. The Five Year Forward View sets out high level objectives to address these issues.

There has been no formal evaluation of the National Stroke Strategy. However there is a continuous evaluation of the quality of stroke care via the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP). This measures most of the key indicators defined as important in the strategy and findings are available on the SSNAP website:

https://www.strokeaudit.org/