COUNCILLORS said emergency stroke services have improved since a controversial reorganisation, but concerns remain about aspects of the new arrangements.

Members of Darlington Borough Council’s health and partnerships scrutiny committee were told that since the setting up of a centralised stroke treatment unit at the University Hospital of North Durham – instead of a two centre service operating out of Darlington and Durham City – more stroke patients were being treated more quickly.

But councillors voiced concerns that some patients from the Darlington area suffering from suspected strokes were still being taken by ambulance to the Accident and Emergency department at the town’s Memorial Hospital, even though the stroke unit there had closed.

There was also concern about the lack of speech therapy for some patients after they had been transferred to Bishop Auckland General Hospital for rehabilitation.

Hospital officials presented figures which showed that the percentage of suspected stroke patients admitted to a stroke unit within four hours of arrival had increased from 55 per cent to 90 per cent and the proportion of patients given clot-busting drugs had increased to between 15 and 20 per cent.

Councillor Heather Scott said that, while the care provided at Bishop Auckland’s stroke rehabilitation unit was “second to none”, she was aware of a younger patient who completely lost their speech when the support they received had been “absolutely abysmal”.

She said relatives had to arrange for the patient to be transferred to the Tavistock Trust, a centre providing speech therapy at Newcastle University.

Coun Scott said it also appeared that many of the speech and language therapists were locum staff rather than permanent staff.

Councillor Tony Richmond expressed concern that some patients with suspected strokes were still being taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Officials from the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust acknowledged that more permanent speech therapists needed to be appointed and revealed they were in discussion with their commissioners, NHS County Durham and Darlington, to try to remedy the situation.

Dr Bernard Esisi, head of the stroke service, said that in a minority of cases someone with a suspected stroke had been taken by ambulance to Darlington Memorial Hospital because they had other clinical problems.

The trust has agreed to obtain more detailed information about patient movements from the North-East Ambulance Service.

Councillors planned to review the performance of the new stroke service in September.