Local MS for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Samuel Kurtz, has expressed his concern in the quality of West Wales’ stroke services.
His concern follows a recent assessment by the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) which has marked all of Wales’ stroke units between the grades A and E.
SSNAP graded each hospital based off six key services, these include:
- Scanning
- Admission to stroke units
- Thrombolysis (clot busting drugs)
- Occupational therapy
- Physiotherapy
- Speech and language therapy
Using this system, each hospital is then awarded an overall grade, which incorporates the results of all six key stroke services.
Withybush General Hospital received the highest overall rating, followed by Glangwili Hospital and then Prince Phillip Hospital.
However, concerns were raised when three out of the three major hospitals in West Wales received a grade E for their admission to stroke unit assessment – the lowest grade allocated by the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme.
Commenting on the results, Senedd Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Samuel Kurtz MS said:
“These are concerning results. While there has been some improvement, the Admission to Stroke Units was red rated across all three hospitals. This doesn’t make for easy reading.
“Admission to stroke units is key; the sooner a patient is admitted and receives the emergency treatment they need, the better the outcome – these results don’t fill me with the confidence I need, to know that this is happening.
“A big improvement to these services is absolutely needed, and the Health Board need to explain why the admission to stroke units grading is so low.
“Each of these three major hospitals need to be on the path to improving stroke services now – there’s no time to wait when lives are at risk.”
The full SSNAP dataset can be found on the SSNAP website.
