NHS chiefs defend ERI over stroke care targets failure

Published on Wednesday 7 October 2009 10:11

HEALTH bosses today blamed other pressures faced by the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for its failure to meet targets on stroke care.

They said the varying nature of admissions to the ERI made it harder to free up beds in stroke units compared to the Western General, which manages to reach the 70 per cent level of moving someone to a special unit within a day of them suffering a stroke.

Last week, the Evening News revealed that fewer than half of stroke patients at Little France and St John's Hospital, Livingston, were receiving that standard of care, reducing the chances of survival.

Health bosses said they could not leave emergency patients with other illnesses waiting on trolleys while a stroke bed remained free.

NHS Lothian's lead clinician for the Lothian Stroke Managed Clinical Network, Professor Martin Dennis, said: "It is often not possible to keep a stroke unit bed empty while waiting for the next patient with a stroke to come to the hospital.

"If a patient with another condition is waiting in A&E for a bed, they will often be placed in the last available stroke unit bed. Not to do so would potentially breach the four-hour limit for trolley waits in A&E."