Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to support the wider implementation of mechanical thrombectomy in the treatment of stroke.

NHS England’s National Clinical Director (NCD) for stroke is leading work to develop a full proposal which will consider the evidence and logistical issues involved in delivering mechanical thrombectomy to stroke patients across the country. This includes working with the relevant specialist societies, Royal Colleges and Health Education England to consider the workforce implications. Once the proposal has been developed, NHS England will decide whether the procedure should be made widely available.

The Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) is now collecting data on patients treated with mechanical thrombectomy and the latest data shows that 124 patients were treated between October 2015 and March 2016. It should be noted, however, that this may not reflect all patients treated as some may not have had their data entered into SSNAP.

The SSNAP team is addressing this issue with the relevant clinicians. SSNAP data is freely available at:

https://www.strokeaudit.org/