Community stroke services

We make sure all patients who have had a stroke or TIA continue to have access to stroke assessments and appropriate care following their discharge home from hospital.

The service will be informed of your discharge from hospital. We will contact you within 72 working hours of discharge. We will then arrange to see you, according to your clinical needs, either at home, or in a local clinic. We will provide therapy, advice, support or information as required. If you have had a stroke, you will also have a formal review after 6 months.

Support will be provided in variety of ways including:

• home visits
• telephone and video calls
• clinic appointments
• lifestyle advice

To promote and aid your recovery, the team will work with your GP to prevent a further stroke or TIA. This could include reviewing your medication and discussing changes with your GP. They will also work with other healthcare professionals and other organisations which are supporting you to provide them with expert advice.

Our team will provide you with the skills to manage your condition. They will be a lifelong resource for you, your family and carers. They can also advise you and your carers on how to access additional support from our statutory, charity and voluntary organisations.

The clinic is a one-stop, multi-disciplinary, rapid access service for patients with transient ischaemic attack (TIA) or mini-stroke.

The clinic provides secondary prevention to reduce the incidence of stroke and unnecessary acute hospital admissions.

Clinics are held 7 days a week at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

They are staffed by a:

• consultant
• stroke nurse
• clinical vascular scientist
• clinic nurse

Referrals are triaged on receipt and if assessed as high risk, we aim to see the patient within 24-hours.

After the clinic, the Stroke Specialist Nurse Team will be informed of patient’s diagnosed with TIA or stroke. They will then arrange a follow-up appointment either at home or in clinic according to the patient’s clinical needs.

Resources

• TIA clinic patient information leaflet

What is a stroke?

A stroke is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the blood supply to the brain is disrupted.

• Over 100,000 people have a stroke every year.
• A stroke occurs every 5 minutes.
• Stroke has an immediate and lasting impact on the lives of those affected.
• Survivors can present with lots of different and complex consequences.

Act FAST

The main symptoms of a stroke or TIA can be remembered with the FAST acronym.

• Face: The face may have dropped on 1 side, the person may not be able to smile, or their mouth or eye may have dropped.
• Arms: The person with suspected stroke may not be able to lift both arms and keep them there because of arm weakness or numbness in 1 arm.
• Speech: Their speech may be slurred or garbled, or the person may not be able to talk at all, despite appearing to be awake.
• Time: It is time to dial 999 immediately if you see any of these signs or symptoms.

The stroke workforce

The National Clinical Guideline for Stroke (2023) are clear that a skilled workforce is essential to be able to provide the best care for people with stroke.

"The workforce is recognised as the backbone of our stroke service." Stroke Association

There are a wide range of professionals involved in caring for patients across the pathway.

We are motivated to develop, deliver, and support the workforce with the knowledge and skills to care for stroke patients.

This section of our website offers you links to education resources and training in caring for stroke patients and their carers and families.

This is designed to get you the most from your study and maximise time saving opportunities.

Stroke specific education framework

Here you can find links to our local stroke proficiencies created in line with work from the stroke specific education framework. The framework describes the knowledge and skills required for those working in stroke services and aligned to banding and roles in healthcare.

Education and training in stroke should be used simultaneously with the framework to support evidence of development. As well as supporting professional and career development.

There are 2 specialist stroke rehabilitation units where a multi-disciplinary stroke team will care for you and provide further therapy to help prepare you for going home.

The specialist stroke rehabilitation units are:

• Woodfield Stroke Rehabilitation Unit at Bodmin Community Hospital
• Lanyon Stroke Rehabilitation Unit at Camborne Redruth Community Hospital

You will be assessed on your arrival and your personal treatment plan will be reviewed and developed by the team ensuring. The team will ensure that:

• individual problems and issues are clearly identified
• measurable goals are agreed with you and included in the treatment plan
• the individual treatment plan is regularly reviewed with you, your family and carers

For those who need rehabilitation, there is a range of therapy that includes:

• occupational therapy
• physiotherapy
• speech and language therapy

Each patient will have an agreed personal development plan. The plan will include their goals and the type and frequency of therapy required to achieve the goals.

When it is time for you to be discharged from hospital, or when you reach the end of care from the Early Supported Discharge Team, your ongoing care will be carefully planned by the Specialist Stroke Team. They will work closely with your GP, community health care teams and social services.

You and your family and carers will be given information about your diagnosis, your likely prognosis and advice about care at home. As well as helpful contact details in case you encounter any problems.

If necessary, a home assessment will be undertaken to make sure that any adaptations to your home are made before you arrive. The Specialist Stroke Team will work with you and your carers to plan the details of the care you will need at home.

Some patients will have active input from a social worker. The social worker will help with discharge from hospital. This includes patients who are going to a nursing or residential home. Some who are discharged home from hospital will require ongoing therapy from either:

• the rehabilitation team
• a specialist neuro occupational therapist
• a neuro physiotherapist

Your GP will also be able to help with any further support you may need. Your GP will be informed about your admission and your care needs when you return home. Following your discharge, they will then become the doctor responsible for your care.

• Stroke and TIA Clinical Knowledge Summary: Covers the primary care assessment and management of adults presenting with suspected acute stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA), secondary prevention of stroke and TIA in primary care, and management of complications of stroke in primary care.
• Nurse’s Lab: A useful resource Illuminating the complex pathways of the nervous system with their definitive guide.
• Stroke e-learning programme: Designed to provide an overview of stroke care across the entire pathway and promote better patient care, by providing all health and social care professionals and multidisciplinary teams with the appropriate level of knowledge, skills and experience they need to deliver effective stroke prevention and care to people with stroke, and at risk of stroke. To access the stroke programme, you will need an ELFH account.
• Right Care toolkit: Supports local health systems to understand the priorities in stroke prevention, identification, acute care, and rehabilitation, as identified in the integrated stroke delivery networks.
• Stroke, where is the lesion?: Presents principles of arterial anatomy based on clinical presentation of stroke.
• Stroke mimics: This session addresses conditions that may mimic the clinical presentation of stroke. This is more common than you might think with even experienced clinicians frequently caught out. The different 'stroke mimics' will be explored by a series of cases and questions.
• Stroke Association statistics: The latest data for the UK and each of the nations on the number of strokes, stroke prevalence (the number of living stroke survivors) and stroke as a leading cause of death. This is reviewed regularly to ensure the data is up-to-date.

• Acute stroke management podcast: The Hearing Aid Podcasts talk about what acute stroke is and how it presents, and what initial steps can be taken by the first members of the team to improve the early management.
• Observing general deterioration training: Introduces the key areas around the recognition and management of the deteriorating patient. Starting with a contextualisation of deteriorating patient initiatives and the evidence that underpins the current recommendations for practice. The section will discuss 3 key areas which are NEWS, SBAR and the ABCDE assessment.
• Signs of life: Supports learners to practice using NEWS2 in a safe game-based environment. It allows them to identify issues such as sepsis, understand the treatment and escalation of conditions and see the consequences of their routine decisions.

• Certify a fit note training: Developed by the joint Work and Health Unit (Department for Health and Social Care and Department for Work and Pensions) to support eligible health care professionals to certify a fit note.
• Pain and treatment for healthcare e-learning: Modules on pain that explore assessment types of pain and treatment. Search for ‘epain’ in the catalogue list.
• Stroke training and awareness resources: An online learning tool for health and social care staff to enable them to become more knowledgeable and skilful in the challenging area of stroke care. The website provides a multi-disciplinary resource which focuses on a wide range of core knowledge and skills required by all staff when delivering stroke care.
• Visual problems in stroke and neurology: This course which can be accessed on ‘develop me’ is for multi-disciplinary staff within stroke, neurology and wider community services to increase their knowledge.
• Vocational support training: Supports gaining the knowledge and understanding of vocational support following a stroke.

• End of life awareness and symptom control training.

• Functional disorders e-learning package: Functional disorders are a common cause of stroke-like symptoms. This session goes through the assessment and management of the patient with functional disorder presenting in a stroke-like way.
• Functional Neurological Disorder Action: A patient-led charity who offer a caring and supporting hand to people living with functional neurological disorder and their caregivers in the UK. A useful resource for staff and patient education.

• Alcohol and tobacco interventions: This course has been designed to explain why it is our responsibility as health professionals to provide brief interventions to identify and influence smoking and alcohol use in hospital patients.
• Hypertension programme: Incorporates up-to-date guidelines and evidence addressing the diagnosis and management of hypertension and CVD risk. The programme consists of a film and is accompanied by a short quiz to test knowledge and understanding of the topic.
• Physical activity programme: This session discusses the positive impact of physical activity on people living with cardiovascular conditions.
• Stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation: This programme aims to improve participants knowledge of how to assess a patients stroke risk and suitability for anticoagulation therapy. As well as educating participants on how to initiate and monitor anti-coagulation therapy, including patient counselling.

• Find support in your area: For stroke survivors and their carers and families.
• Stroke Association support hub: A list of services provided by the Stroke Association. Find helpful advice and guidance for stroke survivors and their families.

• National clinical guidelines for stroke: Provides authoritative, evidence-based practice guidance to improve the quality of care delivered to every adult who has a stroke in the UK and Ireland.
• Medication history e-learning: This session describes how to take a medication history from a patient and the important points to note when using this as a basis for ongoing prescribing.
• Thrombolysis and thrombectomy e-learning: This session covers the use of thrombolysis and thrombectomy in the peripheral circulation to clear occlusions.