National sentinel stroke audit 1998-2011

Abstract

Stroke is a common and devastating disease and, until very recently, was largely unrecognised as a -preventable or treatable condition. Between 1998 and 2010, the National Sentinel Stroke Audit (NSSA) achieved 100% voluntary participation, collecting data on more than 60,000 patients from stroke services within England, Wales and Northern Ireland and becoming a benchmark for hospital stroke services. In this way it has informed stroke improvement at the local, regional and national levels and has overseen a radical change in stroke care within the NHS. This article describes the achievements of the NSSA and the -lessons learned.

Keywords: clinical audit; service improvement; stroke.

Fig 1.

(a) Percentage of patients admitted to hospital with a stroke receiving stroke unit care during the admission, (b) reduction of hospital length of stay for patients admitted with primary diagnosis of stroke, (c) reduction in 30-day hospital mortality for those admitted with primary diagnosis of stroke, and (d) percentage of patients with acute stroke diagnosis in hospital, newly discharged to institutional care.