Northampton General Hospital stroke patients’ initiative shortlisted for top national award

A team from Northampton General Hospital is in the finals of a top innovation award for the way they have involved patients in shaping future care.

The NGH Community Stroke Team is among 10 shortlisted for the Innovate Awards 2022 for their “putting the patient at the centre of all we do – living a meaningful and fulfilling life after stroke” initiative.

The scheme involved designing and improving a care pathway using direct input from stroke patients.

This enabled staff and patients to work together on improving care by highlighting key concerns and ensuring that resources were concentrated in the areas of most need.

Leanna Luxton leads the team that consists of occupational, speech and language, and physiotherapists, rehabilitation assistants and practitioners, and specialist nurses.

She said: “We started by interviewing 100 stroke patients who had been through our pathway to ask what issues they had faced.

“We also recruited 45 stroke patients to sit on a monthly forum so that we were able to listen to their voice and ensure that we targeted the right things to be improved.

“As a result, we found some of the key concerns patients had were waiting times for care at home after leaving hospital, psychological support, help with returning to work and frustration at the large number of repeat assessments.”

As a result of the work the team secured national funding to support setting up:

■ A care reablement service that provides therapeutic care at home within 24 hours of discharge

■ A vocational rehabilitation service to assist patients to return to work

■ A patient and family support service and online community network, ‘My Stroke Hub’, to help patients to support each other and also provide information

■ A ‘Psychological Wellbeing Pathway’ providing training to staff in the entire stroke pathway.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday (September 29)

NGH director of nursing Debra Shanahan said: “I am not surprised our team has been shortlisted for this national award — they are nationally acclaimed service with an excellent delivery record and great patient feedback.”