Stroke Association response to the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan

The NHS is in the middle of its worst ever workforce crisis and action is desperately needed to ensure all patients, including stroke patients, can receive timely and effective care. The Stroke Association welcomes the publication of the long-awaited NHS Workforce Plan.

We welcome the large increases in training places over the medium to long term across different healthcare professions. If fully resourced, these increases could help to alleviate the chronic workforce shortages in stroke care, with over half of consultant stroke doctor positions being vacant and less than a third of community-based rehabilitation teams meeting recommended staffing levels.

In the implementation of this Plan, we need to see growing investment in a stroke workforce able to deliver high-impact and well-evidenced interventions such as mechanical thrombectomy and Early Supported Discharge (ESD), as well as investing in the longer-term support of stroke survivors, through Life After Stroke services. These interventions can decrease pressure on other elements of the health system and are crucially cost effective. As a provider of Life After Stroke services across the UK, the Stroke Association also strongly believes the voluntary sector is central to alleviating chronic staff shortages across the stroke pathway.

Juliet Bouverie OBE, the Stroke Association’s Chief Executive, said: “This is an ambitious plan that will hopefully put the NHS workforce on a sustainable footing in the long term. Research shows stroke patients have better outcomes on appropriately staffed wards. Increases in the numbers of stroke professionals are desperately needed to provide 24/7 access to life-saving treatments such as thrombectomy, as well as to provide timely and effective rehabilitation.

“This Plan is only the start of a process to make the NHS workforce fit for the future. We need to retain our current staff and their vast institutional knowledge, to train the next generation of clinicians – we can’t turn on the tap without putting in the plug. We also need to see specific plans for making the stroke workforce sustainable into the future, as well as a Social Care Workforce Plan to tackle immense shortages in this sector."