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The health secretary has confirmed half of Kent's hospital stroke units will close and be replaced by three new "hyper acute" centres.
Campaigners have been fighting to keep the stroke services at Medway Maritime Hospital, QEQM in Margate and Tunbridge Wells Hospital with fierce opposition to the loss of the centre in Thanet.
Critics argued patients in Thanet would potentially face life-threatening situations by being transferred to their nearest hyper acute stroke unit (HASU) at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.
But after a long-wrangled battle with the NHS and a series of legal challenges, the fight looks to have been lost as health secretary Sajid Javid today approved the Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group's (CCG) plan to create the new network.
Alongside the William Harvey, the new HASUs will open at Maidstone Hospital and Darent Valley – all of which currently have stroke units in place.
Campaigners had argued a wider geographical spread across the county was vital to ensure patients could receive quick treatment as close to home as possible.
But the NHS says its stroke review will provide "very specialist care" and will improve the treatment available for stroke victims and will "save a life a fortnight compared to the previous configuration".
Dr David Hargroves, senior stroke consultant for East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust and lead clinician for the Kent and Medway acute stroke review, said: “The review of urgent stroke services in Kent and Medway has always been about improving the quality of care and outcomes for patients leading to fewer deaths and less long-term disability from stroke.
"All patients, no matter where they live in Kent and Medway, will benefit from being admitted to units that are able to provide excellent stroke care 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“This welcome announcement from the Secretary of State means that we are able to proceed in earnest to deliver much needed improvements to acute stroke services, and certainty for our hard-working staff.”
It follows a review led by the Independent Reconfiguration Panel after it was referred to the Secretary of State by Medway Council, which has also been leading legal challenges about the proposed loss of the centre at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham.
The centre there has already closed because of a lack of specialist staff able to man the service. It shut down last July.
A series of High Court challenges and judicial reviews led by campaigners have also been defeated.
Today's announcement by Mr Javid confirms the NHS will be able to proceed with its plan to launch the HASUs and health chiefs say they are now also drawing up plans for "investment in comprehensive stroke rehabilitation and prevention services across Kent and Medway".
The health service has also announced £100,000 will be invested in a specialist "neuropsychological rehabilitation" service dedicated to Medway – further details of the service have not yet been released.
Rachel Jones, executive director for strategy and population health at Kent and Medway CCG, said: “We now have the go-ahead to focus on implementing our plans to deliver three hyper acute stroke units in Kent and Medway - a widely recognised way of delivering high quality hospital-based care for people in the immediate days after a stroke.
“We will continue to work closely with the doctors, nurses, therapists, other frontline staff and stroke survivors who have been so central to the design of these plans, as we seek to implement the HASUs as quickly as we can.
“I am also delighted to announce a wider package of investment, including £100,000 investment into Medway to support neuropsychological rehabilitation for the local Medway population.
"In addition we are working on a detailed business case for stroke rehabilitation and prevention services that will deliver further investment across Kent and Medway. We will have a clearer picture of this investment once the business case has been fully developed.”
In February 2019, the proposals were agreed by the former eight CCGs across Kent along with Bexley CCG and East Sussex CCG to replace the six general stroke units to the three hyper acute model.
Two judicial reviews were brought to the courts by concerned patients backed by campaign groups Save Our NHS in Kent (Sonik) and Thanet Stroke Campaign were lost last February.
Tunbridge Wells Hospital stroke services moved to Maidstone Hospital in September 2019 following similar staffing issues suffered at Medway the following year.
Stroke services in east Kent are currently being delivered at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in response to the Covid pandemic with patients normally treated at QEQM and the William Harvey moved to the Canterbury site.
The new HASUs will now be implemented following Mr Javid's decision and the NHS says the changes seen in the past three years has not seen the changes for the new service brought in yet.
Health minister Edward Argar said: “I am pleased to give the green light to plans to transform stroke services in Kent and Medway, with three new stroke units and a network of local services to significantly improve care for stroke victims, helping to save lives and reduce disability.
“Alongside this we are backing Kent and Medway with £100,000 to support neuropsychological rehabilitation for people in Medway, in addition to previous investment to improve emergency care and diagnostic services, and modernise services as the NHS continues to recover from the pandemic.”
