Support our stroke services—BACK THE BID!

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is launching a major public campaign urging patients and members of the public and staff to back our bid to be a specialist ‘hyper-acute’ stroke unit (HASU) as well as a local stroke unit and a TIA (Transient Ischaemic Attack) centre.

Trust Chairman, Professor Sir Christopher Edwards, and Chief Executive, Heather Lawrence, are writing personally to patient and public members of our Foundation Trust.

They are asking members to support stroke services at Chelsea and Westminster by responding to Healthcare for London’s public consultation on future changes to both stroke and major trauma services.

The 2006 National Sentinel Stroke Audit ranked our stroke services as the best in North West London.

Although Healthcare for London recommends that Chelsea and Westminster should be both a local stroke unit and a TIA centre, it recommends Charing Cross Hospital as the location for our local HASU although we showed we could ‘equally meet future standards’.

The Trust understands how Healthcare for London came to the decision, namely because stroke services are co-located with neurosurgery at Charing Cross and because the hospital’s geographical location would lead to shorter travel times.

However, the consultation document states that if St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington is designated as a major trauma centre by Healthcare for London, the HASU would be located at St Mary’s rather than Charing Cross – both hospitals are part of Imperial Healthcare.

The Trust is concerned that this may call into question the validity of the reasons why Charing Cross, rather than Chelsea and Westminster, is the best location for a HASU.