Fresh from a report showing how cancer survival rates in Britain compare poorly with other European countries, a new report in the British Medical Journal covered in the media today warns that the UK has the worst outcome for strokes in western Europe despite spending the same amount or more on care as other countries. The report also found that at present less than 1 per cent of patients are eligible for clot-busting drugs get them in the UK, against 20 to 30 per cent in many European countries and North America and Australia.
A National Audit Office report in 2005 calculated that 550 deaths could be avoided a year, and 1,700 patients would recover fully rather than being disabled, if stroke services were better organised.
This is yet another example of how the NHS, run by politicians who lack the management experience and subject knowledge, is failing the nation.