Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the efficacy of the healthcare system in diagnosing silent strokes.

NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to focus on the detection and management of risk factors including high blood pressure, raised cholesterol, atrial fibrillation and diabetes to improve diagnosis of silent strokes.

The NHS Long Term Plan highlighted that stroke community rehabilitation as an area with significant scope for improvement. NHS England and NHS Improvement are developing a service specification for an integrated community rehabilitation service in order to reduce variation in the provision of stroke rehabilitation across England.

Stroke rehabilitation pilot schemes from 2020 to 2022 will develop a best practice model for high intensity rehabilitation, to be rolled out nationally. Both the specification and the pilot schemes will incorporate learning and innovation within community stroke teams as a response to COVID-19, including virtual rehabilitation.