Two reports from the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) have shown that there is a major shortage of NHS doctors and nurses in stroke care.
The reports also found that one in seven stroke patients is under 60 years of age, with 63% of patients arriving at hospital within four hours of first experiencing symptoms, the slowest quarter of patients arrived at hospital more than seven hours after.
SSNAP measures staffing levels, resources and facilities available in every hospital and found that one in four hospitals has an unfilled consultant stroke physician post and there are not enough trainee doctors to fill them.
At 10am on weekends 27% of hospitals had the minimum three qualified nurses on duty at all times during the day per 10 stroke patient beds.
The reorganisation of acute stroke services was found to have been a success with more seven day working and nearly all hospitals provided constant access to clot-busting drugs. These drugs can reduce disability and three quarters of eligible patients now receive them.
Three out of four hospitals had access to stroke specific early supported discharge services, 60% of patients who need support for mood or cognition after discharge received the support they required.
The average time for a patient to have a brain scan was 1 hour 22 minutes and to see a stroke nurse was 2 hours 17 minutes.
Jon Barrick, chief executive of the Stroke Association said: "It is very worrying that the organisational audit of stroke services reports major shortages of specialist stroke doctors and nurses. Stroke is an emergency and it can happen at any time. Patients should receive specialist care around the clock and a lack of staff will mean they will suffer unnecessarily.
"There is a considerable body of evidence showing the level of care you receive in the first few hours after your stroke, as well as in the longer-term, can make a big difference to your recovery. Stroke is the biggest cause of complex disability in the world but people are more likely to survive, return home and regain independence if they receive specialist care in a stroke unit and access to specialist staff and services when they leave hospital."
