Withybush, Glangwili and Prince Philip Hospitals have each hit rock bottom with 'sub-standard track records' in their ability to admit patients for stroke assessment.

All three hospitals have been given the lowest ‘E’ rating following their recent assessment by the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme.

“These are concerning results,” said Senedd Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Samuel Kurtz.

“The admission to stroke units has been rated red across all three hospitals and this doesn’t make for easy reading.”

Western Telegraph: Glangwili is one of the three hospitals to fail on its stroke admissionsGlangwili is one of the three hospitals to fail on its stroke admissions

Samuel Kurtz went on to say that admission to a stroke unit is a key factor in ensuring that a patient receives their correct care.

“The sooner a patient is admitted and receives the emergency treatment that'srequired, the better the outcome.

“These results don’t fill me with the confidence I need.

“A big improvement to these services is absolutely necessary, and the Health Board need to explain why the admission to stroke units grading is so low”.

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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 to E.

The six key services which were assessed comprised scanning, thrombolysis (clot busting drugs), occupational therapy, physiotherapy
speech and language therapy and admission to stroke units.

Using this system, each hospital was awarded an overall grade incorporoating the results of all six key stroke services.

Withybush General Hospital received the highest overall rating, followed by Glangwili and then Prince Phillip.

“Each of these three major hospitals need to be on the path to improving their stroke services now,” added Samuel Kurtz.

“There’s no time to wait when lives are at risk.”

The full SSNAP dataset can be found on the http://SSNAP website.