The stroke Consultation Journey so far...
Improving stroke Outcomes in Coventry and Warwickshire builds on significant work that has been undertaken in recent years to help improve stroke and stroke ‐related services across the local area.
Achievements to date include:
- The centralisation of care for high risk patients requiring thrombolysis;
- The strengthening of Commissioning specifications for hyper acute stroke, acute stroke and
- TIA services in 2010/11 – designed to support improved access and equity of services,
- improved productivity in the delivery of care and improved health outcomes; and
- The development of plans to improve post‐stroke discharges and post‐discharge care.
At a regional level, in 2012, the then NHS Midlands and East Strategic Health Authority (SHA) Cluster commenced a review of stroke and Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) services to help achieve an improvement in the quality of care and health outcomes across its patch. This resulted in:
- An evidenced based, best practice specification for stroke and TIA services (2012) which remains in place; and
- A review of proposals for the reconfiguration of pathways and services across each health economy system against this specification.
- In 2012, each health economy in the Midlands and East area was asked to develop a series of proposals outlining new stroke pathways and how they will meet the 2012 stroke specification;
- this work was supported by each health economy’s respective Regional stroke Network which was responsible for collating the individual provider organisations proposals and pulling these into a single response.
On this basis, the then Coventry and Warwickshire stroke Network collated submissions on behalf of Coventry City Council, Warwickshire County Council, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust (GEH), South Warwickshire Foundation NHS Trust (SWFT), Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT) and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW) for forwarding to NHS Midlands and East Strategic Health Authority (SHA). The last version to be submitted to the SHA in was in February 2013.
After the extensive organisational restructure of the NHS in 2012 that followed the passing of the NHS Health and Social Care Act (2012), based on the evidence and work completed to date, the newly established Clinical Commissioning Groups (‘CCGs’) in Coventry and Warwickshire prioritised stroke as a key clinical priority for improvement.
The CCGs took over the lead responsibility for the collaborative Commissioning of stroke services in line with the Midlands and East 2012 specification in April 2013, and working with members of the original Coventry and Warwickshire stroke Network, completed a further review of services against the regional pathway in advance of the External Advisory Panel Review in December 2013.
The three local CCGs (NHS Coventry and Rugby CCG, NHS South Warwickshire CCG and NHS Warwickshire North CCG) now aim to use this opportunity to take the work forward to deliver improvements in health outcomes.