Health: Stroke

Baroness Rendell of Babergh Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Rendell of Babergh (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for initiating this debate on childhood stroke, a misfortune many will be surprised to learn children can suffer from. In fact, infants have the same risk of having a stroke as the old; an unborn child can have a stroke. One infant in every 4,000 live births has a stroke. It would be difficult to name an illness or disability more emotionally disturbing to a parent than a stroke occurring in a child. When it happens, a parent at first finds it hard to believe.

When I was young, both my parents died after having strokes, my father after several strokes. Between their deaths, someone I knew had a child of eight who suffered a stroke. Virtually nothing was done for my parents except to leave them to die in relative comfort. The little girl spent some time in hospital but was left partially paralysed, perhaps because it was a long time before what had happened to her was recognised and there was then no effective treatment. That was 40 years ago, and things have changed. Good care is now taken in hospitals and attention given to a parent’s psychological and emotional needs. There is recognition of the shock parents suffer when they learn of what has happened to their child.

The Evelina London Children’s Hospital, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred, is part of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. It was founded in 1869 by Ferdinand de Rothschild, in memory of his English wife Evelina, who had died in childbirth. The hospital was restored and reopened in 2005 with 140 beds. At Evelina, the need of children to have their parents with them and the perhaps greater need of parents to be with their children is recognised, and there is no restriction on children and their parents being together. Parents can stay with their child at any time, and there is a pull-out bed next to the child’s bed.

Evelina collaborates with the Stroke Association in its Child Stroke Project. This provides tailored information for children, young people and families who are affected by stroke and offers emotional support in adjusting to the impact of stroke, while Scope runs a parenting befriending scheme called Face 2 Face. The Stroke Association has a helpline and provides support services across the country to help those affected by stroke to recover their lives.

Even more than the distress and anxiety caused to adults with stroke, childhood stroke brings fear and bewilderment to the parents of such children and it is they who need help and comfort. Apart from Scope’s Face 2 Face, the Stroke Association is now building a community of people who care about stroke and want to see people make the best recoveries. Emotional support is as crucial for recovery as physical rehabilitation, and stroke survivors’ emotional well-being should be a key part of their health and social care plans. Carers should be recognised as “partners in care” and included in the stroke survivor’s ongoing journey towards recovery. This must be especially true of stroke sufferers in childhood.

Investment needs to be increased in the provision of clinical psychologists, who should ideally be part of the multidisciplinary stroke team, both in hospital and in the community. Children and younger stroke survivors need ongoing support from diagnosis, through peer support groups and the transition to adult services, and this must include treatment of the emotional and psychological impact of stroke on children and their families. Specialist counselling is needed as children and their carers require individual attention specific to their needs.

The Stroke Association is asking health and social care providers to share their experience and successes. If such people are particularly proud of their service or the work they are doing to help people affected by stroke, they should get in touch with the Stroke Association’s campaigns website to share what they have discovered and achieved with others. Does the Minister agree that the passing on of such experience would be immensely beneficial to carers and parents of stroke-affected children, who can often feel isolated and forgotten?