Bridging the quality gap

Stroke is the third biggest killer in the UK yet our stroke care lags behind other developed nations. Bridging the quality gap explores the quality of our stroke care.

Background

Despite the national priority accorded to stroke, services in the UK are not as high quality as they should be. Bridging the quality gap creates a new lens through which we can view stroke care. For the first time, the report brings together data on the performance of stroke services, the evidence of what works and the cost implications. It is a blueprint for immediate action.

Key points

• Bridging the quality gap summarises quality of care using six key domains of care – effectiveness, access, capacity, safety, patient centredness and equity.
• It provides data on quality of care in stroke and illustrates the gap between actual and achievable performance. It provides international benchmarking data to highlight deficiencies in stroke services and variation in care across the country.
• The report reviews available evidence about how to bridge the quality gap in stroke care. Drawing on systematic reviews of the literature, it illustrates the current state of knowledge about ‘what works’ to improve organisational performance and presents emergent research data on the impact of stroke interventions on the avoidable burden of disease.
• It summarises those improvements that would generate the highest value outcomes for patients. It offers a framework through which we can catalyse change by engaging all staff, leaders, managers and clinicians.
• The report presents epidemiological data and summarises recent policy documents on stroke, providing the context against which quality can be judged.

Commentary

In the commentary on the report Dr Maxine Power draws on international experience in improving stroke care and highlights the critical need for concerted effort and action in England.

Maxine is a former Health Foundation Quality Improvement Fellow. She spent a year in the USA working with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. There, she worked up a project brief to identify a core number of processes that if performed reliably will improve outcomes for patients after stroke.

Maxine is now working with The Health Foundation, using the learning she gained to set up a two-year stroke improvement collaborative in hospitals in the North West strategic health authority area.

Download: Rising to the challenge of accelerating improvment in stroke care.pdf (202 kb)

Who should read the reports?

The report and commentary are intended for healthcare decision makers, including policy makers, managers, clinical leaders, researchers and patient groups. They should be used to inform decisions and take actions that will lead to better quality of patient care.