The Stroke Improvement National Audit Programme (SINAP), commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and run by the Royal College of Physicians’ Stroke Programme, shows that 8% of patients received clot-busting treatment (thrombolysis) following a stroke, up from only 1% in the 2008 audit.
The audit collects data on the care of stroke patients in the 3 days following a stroke. Individual hospital results are available on the RCP website and are updated quarterly.
Access the SINAP Public Comprehensive Report online
The audit shows that stroke care for patients is still improving overall. Over half of patients (53%) are admitted to a stroke unit within four hours of their arrival at hospital, which is encouraging.
Just over a third of patients are still being admitted to non-specialist units when they should be admitted to stroke units. The evidence shows that patients treated on stroke units have better outcomes, and the audit advises that trusts who are not admitting patients routinely to stroke units should reconsider their pathways of care.
Another area of concern is continence – all incontinent patients should have a clear continence management plan within 72 hours of admission, but this is only happening in 57% of cases.
Professor Tony Rudd, chair of the Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party and director of the RCP stroke programme, said:
Acute stroke services are improving in England albeit from a low base. Not all hospitals contributed to this national audit and one has to be concerned that the quality of care in the non participating hospitals may be lagging behind those who have been willing to share their data. We will be working hard to increase participation as I believe that publically available data comparing each hospital against their peers is a very powerful tool to improve the quality of care.
Dr Pippa Tyrrell, clinical lead for SINAP, said:
While care is improving in hospitals that participate in the audit, we would encourage all hospitals who care for stroke patients to submit all of their data for scrutiny because this is a very important driver to improve care for everyone with acute stroke.
The full SINAP report will be published on the RCP website on 21 March. For a copy of the full report under embargo please contact Linda Cuthbertson, head of PR, on +44 (0)203 075 1254 / 0774 877 7919, or email Linda.Cuthbertson@rcplondon.ac.uk