Health: Stroke Care

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is right: individual health budgets have enormous potential in the case of stroke patients. I do not have any specific data on that in my brief, as it is still relatively early days for the personal health budgets. However, if I have further information to give her, I will gladly write.

[Baroness Wheeler]

My Lords, the CQC report highlighted huge problems for stroke patients in consistency of care and support after hospital discharge and for long-term stroke survivors in the community. Early supported discharge from hospital involves the majority of rehabilitation taking place at home and is therefore geared to the home setting, yet it is available in only 37 per cent of PCT areas. This is such an important area for progress and obviously a key way of refocusing resources into the community. How will the Minister ensure that this situation is addressed now and under the new health structures? Can he confirm to me that the CQC will continue to monitor the progress of the national stroke strategy and produce further special reviews, given that I understand the team which delivered this last report has now been disbanded?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the unwarranted variations in services are quite clearly unacceptable. The value of the CQC report is that it shines a spotlight on where variations in care need to be addressed. We believe that that will help all stakeholders involved in improving opportunities for people who have experienced a stroke. As regards post-hospital care, on which the noble Baroness rightly focuses, the accelerating stroke improvement programme, which is quite new, is already doing very good work. It was developed specifically to improve care in areas where progress needs to be faster, and that work will most certainly continue.