Scottish Stroke Care Audit

 Last updated: August 27, 2020

Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme Report - 2018

Data tables/charts from the Report

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Supplementary

About this Release

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme 2018 Annual Report includes data, from the Scottish Stroke Care Audit, describing the quality of stroke care in each acute hospital, grouped by Health Board, during 2017, measuring each hospital against Scottish Stroke Care Standards (2016).

Key Points

• During 2017 over 9,000 patients were admitted to hospital with a final diagnosis of stroke and entered into the Scottish Stroke Care Audit.
• The Stroke Care Bundle involves four components: admission to a Stroke Unit, swallow screen, brain scan and aspirin.  Not all patients are eligible for all four components.
• Across Scotland, appropriate Stroke Bundle has improved from 61% in 2016 to 64% in 2017. This is some way short of the 80% standard. The majority of health boards have seen improvement over this time.
• Only 13 patients in 2017 underwent mechanical thrombectomy, a technique to physically remove the clot to open up the artery, a tiny proportion of the 600 patients with severe ischaemic stroke who would be expected to benefit from such treatment.
  

Comparisons 2016–2017 (based on final diagnosis)

Scottish Stroke Care Standard (2016)	Required Standard	2016	2017
Percentage of patients admitted to hospital with a diagnosis of stroke who receive the appropriate elements of the stroke care bundle	80%	61%	64%
Percentage admitted to a Stroke Unit within 1 day of admission.	90%	82%	82%
Percentage with swallow screen within 4 hours of arrival at hospital.	100%	72%	75%
Percentage with brain scan within 24 hours of admission.	95%	93%	93%
Percentage of ischaemic stroke patients given aspirin within 1 day of admission.	95%	90%	91%

 

Further Scottish Stroke Care Standards relating to attendance at specialist stroke/TIA clinic, thrombolysis and carotid intervention are also monitored by the SSCA.

• The total number of patients receiving thrombolysis increased in 2017 to its highest level so far - 12.9% of ischaemic stroke patients (19 per 100,000 of population).
• The standard of 80% treated within 1 hour of arrival at hospital has been exceeded in two hospitals in 2017, the first time any hospital has achieved this standard

Scottish Stroke Care Standard (2016)	Required Standard	2016	2017
Percentage seen at specialist stroke/TIA clinic within 4 days of receipt of referral. (Day of receipt = day 0)	80%	82%	82%
Percentage receiving (thrombolysis) bolus within one hour of arrival at hospital.	80%	55%	59%
Percentage undergoing carotid endarterectomy for symptomatic carotid stenosis within 14 days of the event that first led to seeking medical assistance.	80%	46%	55%

Background

The SSCA monitors the quality of care provided by the hospitals in all Health Boards by collating data collected by the stroke Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs). These data are used by the Scottish Government to monitor progress against the Scottish Stroke Care Standards (2013) and the Scottish Stroke Improvement Plan (2014).

Health Boards are expected to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet the Scottish Standards and to work with their stroke MCNs to improve their standards of care locally.

Contacts

Name/email		Telephone
Dr Mark Barber	SSCA Clinical Lead	01236 748 748
Neil Muir	Clinical Coordinator	0131 275 6089
David Murphy	Senior Information Analyst	0131 275 6624
Iain McDermid	Information Analyst	0131 275 6684