Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what support he plans to offer to regions unlikely to benefit from new mechanical thrombectomy innovations as a result of lacking trained interventional neuroradiologists?

Thrombectomy cannot be provided without the staff equipped to deliver it. NHS England’s priority is therefore to develop well-staffed and effective units capable of delivering safe care. NHS England is supporting networking between thrombectomy centres to cover extended daytime hours while service development is under discussion in each of the regions. Full 24/7 implementation of this relatively new technique across the country will take time. NHS England will explore the possibility of providing care to patients in remote areas using helicopter transfer.

NHS England is initially proposing to set up 24 thrombectomy centres providing care 24 hours a day, seven days a week which would require a minimum of five interventional clinicians for each centre (120 clinicians). Ultimately NHS England expects to need at least 30 centres to provide equitable geographical coverage, so would therefore need 150 interventionists.

To strengthen the available workforce, models of training are being discussed by Health Education England (HEE) and the General Medical Council (GMC). HEE is supportive of these models of training, which will consider interventional radiologists who are already registered as interventional radiologists and have an interest in neuro-intervention. This would form a two year training programme. The second element of this work is a credential model in collaboration with the GMC. The GMC are supportive of this work. Discussions have started to achieve a credentialing model for other appropriate consultant staff.