Strokes: Medical Treatments

(asked on )

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how his Department plans to ensure that eligible stroke patients get access to mechanical thrombectomy treatment.


Answered by
Steve Brine Portrait
Steve Brine
This question was answered on 22nd December 2017

NHS England does not anticipate being able to offer thrombectomy to all eligible stroke patients immediately, because of the need to develop and train further specialists to undertake the procedure. 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, which would require 150 interventionists.

NHS England anticipates that it will take a minimum of five years to achieve full 24/7 services and in the initial roll out phase of implementation most services will not be in a position to safely deliver this service 24/7, as delivering thrombectomy is a complex and highly technical procedure.

Reticulating Splines