Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to replace or renew the National Stroke Strategy, published in December 2007.

The strategy remains valid and implementation of it continues. There are, therefore, no current plans to renew the national stroke strategy. Action is being taken to ensure the progress made on stroke continues. This includes:

- ongoing work in virtually all parts of the country to organise acute stroke care to ensure that all stroke patients, regardless of where they live or what time of the day or week they have their stroke, have access to high quality specialist care;

- publication of the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Outcomes Strategy in 2013, which includes many stroke specific strategic ambitions;

- a CVD expert forum, hosted by NHS England, to coordinate delivery of the work which was initiated in the CVD Outcomes Strategy; and

- NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Stroke works with the Strategic Clinical Networks, clinical commissioning groups, voluntary agencies and individual providers to support better commissioning and provision of stroke care.

More generally, the NHS Five Year Forward View recognises that quality of care, including stroke care, can be variable and that patients’ needs are changing and new treatment options are emerging. The Five Year Forward View sets out high level objectives to address these issues.