Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what research he has commissioned on the effect of patients receiving urgent investigations and treatment following a transient ischaemic attack on reducing (a) the risk of future strokes and (b) the cost to the NHS of treating strokes; and if he will make a statement.

Funding from the Department's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has supported the EXPRESS (Early use of eXisting PREventive Strategies for Stroke) study led by the Stroke Prevention Research Unit at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. The aim of the study was to measure the effect of more rapid treatment after transient ischaemic attack (TIA) and minor stroke in patients who were not admitted directly to hospital. Findings have been published in the journals Lancet and Lancet Neurology. These include findings on the effect of urgent treatment for TIA and minor stroke on early recurrent stroke, and on disability and hospital costs.

An NIHR-funded project commissioned by the former Service Delivery and Organisation programme studied the optimum model of service delivery for TIA. A report of the study is available in the NIHR Journals Library at:

www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/64505/FR-08-1504-112.pdf

The study included consideration of the cost-effectiveness of different patterns of service provision for patients who have had a TIA.