The national guidelines on stroke care as outlined in Changing Cardiovascular Health: National Cardiovascular Health Policy 2010 –2019 (published in 2010) recommend that all hospitals providing care for acute stroke patients must make available immediate access to an acute stroke unit. An acute stroke unit consists of a discrete area of a hospital that exclusively or principally takes care of stroke patients and is adequately staffed by a specialist multidisciplinary team. An acute stroke unit provides high-dependency care including physiological, neurological monitoring and rapid treatment of stroke and associated complications, early rehabilitation and palliative care. Nursing staff in a dedicated stroke unit develop the crucial expertise on appropriate stroke patients assessment, treatment, monitoring & management. Stroke unit care is underpinned by a comprehensive specialist multidisciplinary team including speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, clinical nutrition, social work and clinical psychology. The HSE has established a number of clinical care programmes to improve and standardise patient care throughout the organisation by bringing together clinical disciplines and enabling them to share innovative solutions to deliver greater benefits to every user of HSE services. One of these programmes has been established in the area of stroke care. The National Stroke Programme plan provides for the development of Stroke Units in all acute hospitals currently without units, who admit patients with stroke via the ED, with prioritisation of hospitals with high numbers of stroke admissions annually. It is estimated that the development of 9 additional Stroke Units will result in 90% of all acute Irish hospitals operating a stroke Unit and 90% of all Irish patients with a stroke admitted to a hospital with a functional unit. e plan will also result in greater numbers of patients receiving stroke care, reduced lengths of stay in our hospitals and reduced strike admissions to nursing homes.
Medical specialties in South Tipperary General Hospital include cardiology, diabetes/endocrinology, gastroenterology, general and geriatric medicine, stroke management, rheumatology.
The specific details asked by the Deputy in the question are operational matters for the HSE. Accordingly, I have asked the HSE to reply directly to the Deputy.
