SPECIALIST stroke units in the North-East still have scope to improve, according to a major ‘state of the nation’ report by experts.

Two reports published by the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) show that despite steady progress in the care of stroke patients in the UK there are still major shortages of both nurses and doctors.

This is worrying because research shows that death rates are low when stroke wards have higher number of nurses and death rates for acutely ill patients are lower when there are more doctors available at nights and at weekends.

The assessment of stroke care is commissioned by NHS England and run by a specialist unit of the Royal College of Physicians.

The headline results based on the care provided to 74,000 patients between April 2013 to March 2014 - found that stroke care was improving, mainly due to reorganisation which established fewer but more specialist stroke units.

But because the standards of care set by the SSNAP are very high it meant that many hospitals have received low scores.

A spokesman for the SSNAP said this does not mean that local stroke services are unsafe but it does mean that many hospitals need to improve some aspects of care.

However, experts say they expect that hospitals will receive higher scores in the future.

The results for the North-East showed that the region was in line with other areas of the country but behind the top-performing South-East.

Overall, the best performing stroke centre in the region was the unit at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, which was given a C rating.

The next-best performing hospital stroke units included the University Hospital of North Durham , the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle and the University Hospital of North Tees, which were all given overall D ratings.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead was given an E rating, along with Sunderland Royal Hospital.

Professor Tony Rudd, national clinical director for Stroke NHS England said: “Clearly care is improving but we must not be complacent. There are still too many patients receiving sub-optimal care. To correct these issues we need more stroke consultants and services that deliver treatment seven days a week.”