Stroke care may move out of hospitals into community

Older people’s tsar Professor Ian Philp is to examine how health treatments, including stroke care, can be moved out of hospitals into community settings, the government announced today.

The Department of Health said Philp’s work would help inform its efforts to revise payments by results – the system by which commissioners pay providers for the work they do – to enable a shift in care to the community.

The move was trailed in the health and social care white paper, whose central aim is to move services out of hospitals.

Payment by results currently only applies to hospitals, while the different elements of care are not costed separately.

Philp will look at how payments for different elements of care can be “unbundled” to enable certain services, such as rehabilitation for stroke patients, to be delivered in the community.

The move was welcomed by the Stroke Association. Director of communications Joe Korner said there was evidence that patients benefited from being discharged early from hospital as long as there were specialist rehabilitation teams in the community.

He added: “That would save the NHS money but it would also be good for patients.”

The news comes only a week after parliament’s public accounts committee called for improvements in community services for stroke survivors