Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of stroke care provision within the (a) Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and West Berkshire Integrated Care Board and (b) Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board areas.

The Integrated Stroke Delivery Network (ISDN) in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire West aims to improve stroke care through collaborative service improvement across the stroke pathway, addressing the approximately 2,200 annual stroke admissions in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire West, which cost £38.6 million in 2023/24.

The ISDN's 2025/26 plan prioritises reducing stroke incidence and disability through acute care, rehabilitation, and prevention workstreams. Key achievements include artificial intelligence implementation, to reduce treatment times, and increased mechanical thrombectomy rates, particularly due to the 24/7 service at Oxford University Hospital and an agreed referral protocol, with Wycombe Hospital achieving the highest national referral rate for an acute stroke centre.

Rehabilitation efforts focus on improving consistency, with projects in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire demonstrating positive outcomes, such as increased access to support and improved patient wellbeing. Building on these positive outcomes will require sustained funding in Oxfordshire’s community rehabilitation services, alongside ongoing efforts to enhance the integration of services and patient engagement across the region.

NHS England leads the quarterly joint North and South East of England ISDN meeting, which reviews stroke provision across the region. The Bedfordshire Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) Integrated Care Board (ICB) and representatives from provider trusts attend these meetings to provide assurance. The ICB still has contract monitoring in place with trusts, and trusts have their own internal quality assurance processes. The Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme is the main data source for monitoring, which all the above forums use. The last Getting It Right First Time review of stroke services, which included BLMK, was in 2022.