Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Main Page: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Manzoor
I thank my noble friend for that question. Reconfiguration of stroke services is very important because there is strong evidence that consultant-led specialist treatments in large, centralised hyperacute stroke services, where geographically appropriate, save lives, improve recovery and can reduce the length of hospital stays, while saving money. Three pilots have taken place in London, Manchester and Northumbria. They have seen a 9% reduction in the length of hospital stays in Greater Manchester and a cost saving of £800 per patient in London.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I remind the House of my membership of the GMC. Coming back to the question about hyperacute stroke services, which have been such a huge boost to patient outcomes, the Minister says this is up to CCGs, but all over the country CCGs have been obstructive to this move. They have defended their own district general hospitals, attempting to keep all their stroke services at the expense of the quality and safety of patient care. The Government have to intervene, surely?
Baroness Manzoor
The noble Lord makes a very valid point. As I said, evidence-based medicine is speaking about a hub-and-spoke way forward. There is the national plan. We have set up a primary board that will look at reconfiguration of services and the workforce planning within it. We hope that some of those challenges can be met head on.