As part of the Knowledge Exchange element of the Indonesia-NHS England Stroke Care Workforce Collaboration, eleven delegates from the Indonesian Ministry of Health, the National Brain Centre and Collegium of Neurology attended a 3-day study tour in London and Kent between 23-25th January 2024.
The tour gave the delegates an overview of the full Stroke Care pathway in England from prevention to urgent and acute care through to rehabilitation and long-term conditions. There was also a focus on workforce planning strategies, education frameworks and the data collection methods which underpin English Stroke services.
We arranged for twenty influential speakers from the English stroke care world to present to our delegation. This included the current and future NHS England National Clinical Director for Stroke, the CEO of the Stroke Association, the lead for the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme, the lead for the Stroke Specific Education Framework (from University of Central Lancashire) and many more.
We took delegates on two site visits to University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, which included a visit to proposed site for the first commissioned standalone Mechanical Thrombectomy service in England.
The medical director of the National Brain Centre provided this feedback:
“The experience and knowledge we gained during this visit are invaluable and will undoubtedly contribute significantly to our ongoing efforts in healthcare.
We look forward to future collaborations and the opportunity to apply what we have learned to our practice in Indonesia.”
The study tour also gave the NHS England project team the opportunity to meet with stakeholders they had met in Jakarta in July 2023 and to begin discussions about how to develop Year 2 of the programme.
The study visit afforded the NHS stroke care community the opportunity to showcase the genuine success of the development of networked stroke services in England have had over the last twenty years. This includes stroke mortality in England halving in the past two decades. The Medical Director of East Kent Hospitals noted their pleasure that East Kent was “recognised as a leader in stroke care” and “hope(d) that the overview will bring a huge benefit to the Indonesian delegation and their own patients.”
