Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that changes to stroke services do not delay access to treatment for those living in areas with the poorest health outcomes.

The National Health Service across the country is working to organise acute stroke care to ensure that all stroke patients, regardless of where they live or what time of the day or week have their stroke, have access to high quality specialist care.

Recent work looking at the National Stroke audit data has shown very little difference in access to stroke care in the basis of socio-economic group. These data have been submitted for publication but are not yet in the public domain.