Mechanical Thrombectomy For Acute Ischaemic Stroke: An Implementation Guide For The UK

Foreword
Introduction
1 Evidence for MT in AIS
2 Patients eligible for MTT
3 CSC and PSC configurations

Mechanical thrombectomy for acute
4 Ambulance services for MT
ischaemic stroke: an implementation
5
guide for the UK
Imaging for MT
6 Lessons from PPCI for ST elevation MI
7 Lessons from a 24/7 MT service

Edited by
8 Lessons from IV thrombolysis for AIS Professors Gary Ford, Martin James and Phil White
Editorial support by Jemma Lough
9 Implementing change in acute stroke
Medtronic provided an unrestricted educational grant for the production of this guide
10 Lessons from a regional MT service
11 Developing a business case for MT

August 2019
Useful resources
Contributors
A message from the Stroke Association
Juliet Bouverie, Chief Executive, Stroke Association Physicians and all four of the UK governments have expressed their support for that goal.
Mechanical thrombectomy can have an extraordinary impact on an individual. Take I imagine everyone reading this wants to make the ‘postcode lottery’ of stroke care a
Ronnie, for example, a very fit young man with a young family. Last Christmas Eve, he thing of the past.
was working out in a gym when he collapsed on the running machine. His left side was
paralysed. Ronnie was taken to hospital in Lincoln, where scans confirmed he’d had a In order to deliver thrombectomy services nationally, local stroke services need to be
stroke due to blockage of a large blood vessel in the brain. He was thrombolysed, but his configured in the most efficient and effective way. Providing a good thrombectomy facility
condition remained severe. He was then taken to Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, is only possible within properly organised acute settings that are adequately resourced
where he had a thrombectomy. to deal with the requirements of such a highly specialised service, as Chapter 9 of this
guide illustrates.
Ronnie told me recently:
“I feel incredibly lucky. I know how close I came to living very differently, I just couldn’t Developments are already changing things for the better. The National clinical guideline for
move, I was in a wheelchair. I can remember how frightened I was at the thought that stroke now includes thrombectomy and reflects emerging evidence that thrombectomy
I wouldn’t walk or run again, or that I wouldn’t be able to pick up and cuddle my kids. may be effective in some cases up to 24 hours after stroke. The Stroke Association has
It’s a vivid memory that haunts me, even today… Thrombectomy gave me my life back.” worked with NHS England and others to renew the national focus on stroke and to
prioritise the changes we all want to see. Together we have established the National
Ronnie was keen for me to share his experience as testimony to what a powerful positive Stroke Programme, which underpins NHS England’s NHS Long Term Plan and will scale
intervention thrombectomy can be. It is also one of the most cost-effective treatments in up models of existing quality treatment and care.
the NHS and could be a catalyst for better care across the stroke pathway. This ‘how-to’
guide sets out those opportunities and explores how they might be put into practice. But improvement is not just needed in England. There are currently no thrombectomy
services in Scotland or Wales. We are working across the whole of the UK to make the
There is no hiding from the fact that there are significant challenges to delivering case for modernising and improving access to services, including access to thrombectomy.
thrombectomy in many parts of the UK. We do not have enough trained specialists; The evidence suggests that the cost of fully implementing thrombectomy across the UK
services in many areas are not configured in the most appropriate or efficient way; and would be around £400 million, but it would save £1.3 billion over five years. So the
availability of equipment is also an issue. We also know that some places aren’t even benefits are not only in improved patient outcomes but also in savings for the NHS and
delivering the expected levels of routine interventions like scans and thrombolysis, never social care system, which, especially in these resource-constrained times, has to be a
mind something as specialised as thrombectomy. Even if we overcome these obstacles, serious consideration for any commissioner.
only relatively few people – around 12% of stroke admissions–will ever be eligible.
We firmly believe thrombectomy to be a game-changing intervention that could and
To all of that my answer is quite simple: the gains are worth the challenges. should act as a catalyst for change and improvement across the whole pathway. I hope
this how-to guide will give you the evidence and information you need to help make
The Stroke Association wants as many people who are eligible as possible to receive thrombectomy a routine option for stroke treatment for the benefit of people affected
thrombectomy, and we are not alone in that ambition, as NICE, the Royal College of by stroke across the UK.
Page 1 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Contents
Foreword 1
Juliet Bouverie
Introduction 3
Gary Ford, Martin James and Phil White
1. Evidence base for mechanical thrombectomy in acute ischaemic stroke 5
Phil White
2. How many stroke patients in the UK are eligible for mechanical thrombectomy? 10
Peter McMeekin and Martin James
3. How many comprehensive and primary stroke centres should the UK have? 14
Michael Allen, Kerry Pearn, Martin James, Phil White and Ken Stein
4. Organising ambulance services for effective implementation of mechanical thrombectomy 21
Chris Price and John Black
5. Imaging for stroke thrombectomy and resource implications 26
Alexander Mortimer
6. Implementation of mechanical thrombectomy: lessons from implementation of primary 33
percutaneous coronary intervention for ST segment elevation myocardial infarction
Jim McLenachan
7. Establishing a 24/7 interventional neuroradiology service to deliver hyperacute stroke care: 38
core elements of the project and lessons learned
Sanjeev Nayak
8. Lessons from the implementation of intravenous thrombolysis for acute ischaemic stroke 44
Gary Ford and Martin James
9. Planning and implementing major system change in acute stroke services: lessons from London and Greater Manchester 49
Angus Ramsay, Stephen Morris and Naomi Fulop
10. Establishing a regional thrombectomy service 55
Don Sims
11. Developing a business case for mechanical thrombectomy 60
Marcus Bradley and Carolyn Roper

Trial acronyms and abbreviations 64
Useful resources 67
Contributors 68
References 70

Introduction
Gary Ford, Martin James and Phil White So the challenge is implementation, not more research. The promise of this new era
Stroke remains a major worldwide threat to health despite substantial improvements in in therapeutics demands the most rapid implementation achievable – ‘we must do as
both prevention and treatment in recent years. In Western countries, ischaemic stroke due much of it as we can as soon as we can’. Yet we are acutely aware of some of the
to large artery occlusion (LAO) predominates as a cause of disability, institutionalisation, challenges this is already presenting – in workforce, imaging, redistribution of services
and costs to healthcare and society.1 and reconfigurations, and how best to serve rural and remote populations. The danger
is that such complexity contributes to inertia, and the NHS does not have a great track
Major advances in the treatment of non-communicable diseases are rare. In an era when record for the rapid uptake of disruptive innovations.
we have grown accustomed to eking out marginal gains for patients from small advances
in existing treatments, mechanical thrombectomy (MT) for acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) The current situation with implementation places the UK on a par with our colleagues
represents nothing less than an extraordinary leap forward. Mechanical thrombectomy in Eastern Europe and the Balkans (Figure 1).3 In 2018–19, 1,200 MT procedures were
was developed to address the problem that intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) is effective at recorded in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the national stroke audit SSNAP
opening the artery in only 10–30% patients with LAO. Early treatments with intra-arterial (approximately 1.4% of all ischaemic strokes).4
thrombolysis and insertion of permanent stents and clot extraction devices, such as the
Mechanical Embolus Removal in Cerebral Ischaemia (MERCI) device, evolved into the stent- Figure 1. Map showing the proportion of patients with ischaemic stroke
retriever devices used in most of the pivotal trials and, more recently, aspiration devices. receiving mechanical thrombectomy across Europe.3 Reprinted by permission of
SAGE Publications, Ltd.
The evidence base for MT for anterior circulation LAO stroke is clear and unequivocal,
with 11 randomised controlled trials published since December 2015 demonstrating
substantial benefits over best medical therapy. The compelling evidence for MT in patients
presenting early after stroke has recently been joined by high-quality evidence for benefit
in carefully selected, late-presenting patients. There is palpable excitement in the stroke
world at these new opportunities to spare many people from major disability, with MT Proportion of patients with
offering a dramatic change in the management of the largest cause of adult disability and incident ischaemic stroke receiving
mechanical thrombectomy
the third biggest killer in the UK.2
0–0.7%
0.8–1.5%
Mechanical thrombectomy is the archetype of a ‘disruptive innovation’, particularly
1.6–2.3%
within the unique circumstances of the UK NHS, where service development has been
2.4–3.1%
restrained while definitive evidence is awaited. Such a step-change in treatment for many
3.2–3.9%
people with major disabling stroke requires considerable infrastructure to deliver and is
4.0–4.7%
sure to involve further centralisation of services for hyperacute stroke. In the UK, such Zoom in
centralisations, prior to the advent of MT, have been limited to a small number of mainly 4.8–5.5%
metropolitan areas, with others proving protracted or even stalled. 5.6–6.3%
Missing information
Page 3 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke References Trial acronyms and abbreviations
For England, the NHS Long Term Plan describes the objective of a 10-fold increase in this Note on nomenclature in this guide
figure by 2022. Such ambition is commendable, but it needs to be matched by the sort We have adopted certain terms and abbreviations consistently throughout this guide
of resources and leadership that have proved necessary to implement similar innovations because they are both the most commonly used and/or the most descriptive. For instance,
in the recent past. Meanwhile, as we write, other parts of the UK are virtually devoid of we use ‘large artery occlusion’ (LAO) throughout rather than the term ‘large vessel
a MT service. occlusion’ favoured by other authorities. We use the term ‘mechanical thrombectomy’
(MT), as mechanical differentiates the proven technologies for endovascular stroke
The purpose of this implementation guide is therefore to accelerate the uptake of this treatment from other techniques such as intra-arterial thrombolysis. In describing
high-value treatment by distilling the best available expertise within the UK into a single hyperacute stroke units, in the absence of a recognised nomenclature in the UK, we have
definitive volume. We have brought together the most incisive evidence and analysis, adopted the internationally used terminology of ‘comprehensive stroke centres’ (CSCs,
practical experience from early adopters, and lessons learned from earlier cardiology those capable of delivering both thrombolysis and thrombectomy) and ‘primary stroke
and stroke service reorganisations related to delivering primary percutaneous coronary centres’ (PSCs, those capable of only thrombolysis, with onward transfer to a CSC for
intervention and IVT a decade ago. This guide is meant to be pragmatic, practical and of MT). Trial acronyms and abbreviations are defined in a section at the end of the guide,
immediate relevance in the UK. which can be accessed from each page of the guide, along with the references. Interactive
links throughout the document also offer access to acronyms and abbreviations, as well
Mechanical thrombectomy for AIS represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to alter as chapter cross-references and webpages.
the miserable prognosis for the most devastating form of stroke, with substantial benefits
for individuals and for wider health and social care. On this occasion, the NHS’s habitual,
inertia-laden incremental approach to medical progress won’t do. An opportunity such as Acknowledgements
this calls for visionary and concerted effort to deliver this treatment from all agencies and The editors would like to thank Jemma Lough for her invaluable editorial input in
disciplines involved in stroke care, and we trust that this implementation guide will make producing this implementation guide; Martin Leaver, Head of Communications for
a useful and enduring contribution to that effort. Oxford ASHN; and Oxford Medical Illustration for their support in producing the
figures and interactive pdf. We gratefully acknowledge all our chapter authors and
colleagues for their contributions to this guide.
1 Evidence base for mechanical thrombectomy in acute ischaemic stroke
Phil White
Key points
• for anterior circulation stroke due to proven proximal within 6 hours of onset is safe and highly effective and sets the new standard of care.
• Overall good functional outcome rate at 90 days is about 20% greater with MT than best medical therapy alone, with about half of patients achieving good outcomes after MT.
• Favourable outcome from MT in most patients is strongly time dependent (‘time is brain’); best results are achieved with limited early ischaemic brain injury; if good re-canalisation is
achieved within 4.5 hours, the absolute rate of good functional outcome exceeds 60%.
• In carefully selected patients, MT between 6 and 24 hours (using advanced brain imaging techniques and applying trial selection criteria) is also highly effective and safe.
• MT is highly likely to be cost-effective (at conventional willingness-to-pay thresholds) or even cost-dominant over a lifetime analysis (minimum 20 years).
• The cost of implementing MT across the UK would be around £400 million but would give net savings of £1.3 billion over five years.
Clinical safety and efficacy of mechanical thrombectomy Table 1. Effect of MT compared with best medical therapy on good functional
Since January 2015, 11 positive s of MT in the anterior circulation have been published outcome (mRS ≤2* at 90 days).
(Table 1), leading to a revolution in the care of patients with
5-15
due to LAO. Of the Patients (%, n/N) Absolute
Adjusted OR
accompanying raft of meta-analyses and systematic reviews, only the largest meta-analysis Trial Best medical benefit
MT (95% CI) ITT]†
using individual patient record data and the latest systematic review incorporating trial therapy of (%)
sequential analysis will be discussed further.16, 17 Trials reporting on MT without a non-MT MR CLEAN5 33 (76/233) 19 (51/267) 14 2.2 (1.4–3.4)
control arm18, 19 and trials on early generation devices (such as the device) without
EXTEND-IA11 71 (25/35) 40 (14/35) 31 3.8 (1.4–10.2)
imaging-confirmed LAO prior to enrolment 20-22
are not considered further as they do not
10 60 (59/98) 35 (33/93) 25 2.8 (1.5–4.9)
SWIFT-PRIME
inform current practice.
12 53 (87/164) 29 (43/147) 24 3.1 (2.0–4.7)
ESCAPE
Efficacy of MT within 6 hours of stroke onset REVASCAT 6 44 (45/103) 28 (29/103) 16 2.1 (1.1–4.0)
For trials after ,5 which predominantly or exclusively enrolled patients
THRACE7 53 (106/200) 42 (85/202) 11 1.6 (1.1–2.3)
within the licensed time window (up to 4.5 hours) and used only modern devices
(see Figure 2) ( ,11 ,10 ,7 8
and 9
), there is THERAPY13‡ 38 (19/50) 30 (14/46) 8 1.4 (0.6–3.3)
8 52 (17/33) 38 (12/32) 14 2.1 (0.7–6.9)
remarkable consistency in the good outcomes for best medical therapy, with rates of PISTE
functional independence ( 0–2) between 35% and 42%. MR CLEAN5 is an outlier EASI 9 50 (20/40) 38 (14/37) 12 Not available
at 19% functional independence obtained with best medical therapy, probably due to 14
DAWN 49 (52/107) 13 (13/99) 36 Not available
the higher rate of occlusions (more than one-third) compared with other trials and a
DEFUSE-315 45 (41/92) 17 (15/90) 28 2.7 (1.6–4.5)
protocol to potentially wait to see if IVT worked.
*Corresponds to slight or no residual disability as a result of the stroke.
†Where given, a trial’s own calculated OR is presented rather than that derived from a systematic review.
‡A substantial proportion of patients in (30/55) were not treated with second-generation (modern) devices.
The range of good functional outcomes in MT arms is wider (33–71%), which most likely Figure 2. (a) Stent retriever with extracted clot, and (b) large bore distal
reflects the impact of additional advanced brain imaging selection criteria used in some aspiration catheter with aspirated clot in acute stroke MT cases using these
trials that selected patients with a greater volume of salvageable penumbral tissue (such modern (second-generation) devices.
as EXTEND-IA,11 SWIFT-PRIME,10 ,12 14
and -315). (a)
In the five modern device trials without such advanced brain imaging selection,5-9 the
absolute benefit range for MT is more modest but consistent at 11–16%. All trials used
vascular imaging to confirm LAO. Considerable consistency of adjusted s is seen across
trials, most being in the range 2.1–3.1 (see Table 1). The efficacy of MT is unmatched by
any previous therapy in stroke medicine,23 with an of less than 3 for an improved
functional outcome (1-point improvement in 90-day mRS).16
There is now overwhelming level 1A evidence that modern-device MT achieves

significantly higher re-canalisation rates than alteplase for LAO stroke7 and better
clinical outcomes, with an 11–36% absolute increase in patients recovering from AIS
to be independent in activities of daily living. Mechanical thrombectomy is associated
with a similar risk of to IVT and most trials show no statistical difference in mortality (b)
(though generally trend to lower).16, 17, 24
To date, no convincing evidence has shown that one MT device class is superior to
another. Two recent randomised trials and a systematic review have shown no statistically
significant difference in functional outcome between aspiration and stent retriever-
based MT.25-27
Efficacy of MT beyond 6 hours from onset

The trial used advanced brain imaging in patients recruited 4.5–8 hours after
stroke onset,6 and ESCAPE used /collateral score selection up to 12 hours after
onset. Both trials found no statistical difference in outcomes following MT between
12
those randomised early or late within the trials. This indicates that patient benefit remains
in 6–8- and 6–12-hour windows (when the relevant trial imaging selection techniques
are applied to stroke patients meeting their respective eligibility criteria), but caution is
warranted, as the number recruited after 6 hours in both trials was small.
Two RCTs that subsequently focussed on intervention up to 24 hours after stroke onset/ to functional independence, an updated meta-analysis (not including DAWN/
patient – DAWN (6–24 hours)14 and DEFUSE-3 (6–16 hours)15 – confirmed that DEFUSE-3) indicates that MT does not confer a mortality advantage, although there
MT remains highly effective and far superior to medical therapy alone in highly selected is a non-significant trend to a 20% reduction (see Figure 4). The effect of MT on mortality
patients (see Table 1). Both trials used perfusion-based imaging selection based on TM
is more striking in the trials that used advanced brain imaging selection and selected for
(iSchemaView, California, USA) software processing of or data. In DAWN, only late intervention (beyond 6 hours) – namely ESCAPE, DAWN and DEFUSE-3.12, 14, 15
more proximal occlusions were enrolled (ICA and/or proximal M1 segment), and selection
was on the basis of high relative to small infarct core, as calculated by RAPID.11 Trial sequential analysis indicates that meta-analyses are substantially underpowered to
DEFUSE-3 was slightly less restrictive in its inclusion criteria, allowing moderate-sized show differences for sICH. Nevertheless, no increase in sICH has been shown for MT over
core infarcts as long as there was sufficient mismatch, as calculated by RAPID.15 Overall, best medical care alone.16, 17
combining the two trials, no statistically significant difference between MT and control
arms was found in mortality (15% versus 22%) or sICH (6% versus 4%). The Cincinnati Figure 3. Meta-analyses of first eight trials’ data for mRS 0–2 at 90 days.5-8, 10-13
group assessed DAWN/DEFUSE-3 eligibility among their population of 2,297 ischaemic MT Standard care
Study
strokes over a one-year period: 34 met the DAWN trial eligibility criteria and a further 19 Events Total Events Total OR, random, 95% CI
ESCAPE 87 164 43 147 2.7 (1.7 to 4.4)
were -3 eligible – total eligibility rate of 1.9%.28 This extremely low eligibility rate
EXTEND-IA 25 35 14 35 3.8 (1.4 to 10.2)
on current evidence does not suggest large MT volumes will arise from this population MR CLEAN 76 233 51 267 2.1 (1.4 to 3.1)
(the 12–24-hour subgroup was estimated to comprise just 6% of the LAO stroke patients PISTE 17 33 12 32 1.8 (0.7 to 4.8)
with NIHSS >6 in the UK) (see Chapter 2).28, 29 REVASCAT 45 103 29 103 2.0 (1.1 to 3.5)
SWIFT-PRIME 59 98 33 93 2.8 (1.5 to 4.9)
THERAPY 19 50 14 46 1.4 (0.6 to 3.3)
How generalisable and robust is the evidence? THRACE 106 200 85 202 1.6 (1.1 to 2.3)
The benefits of MT have been demonstrated in a wide range of healthcare systems – the Total (95% CI) 916 925 2.1 (1.7 to 2.5)
Total events 434 281
trials listed in Table 1 recruited from nine countries across Western Europe (including the
0.1 0.2 0.5 1 2 5 10
UK in PISTE and ESCAPE), USA, Canada, Korea (ESCAPE), Australia and New Zealand Favours standard care Favours MT
(EXTEND-IA).5-15
Figure 4. Meta-analyses of first eight trials' data for mortality at 90 days.5-8, 10-13
MT Standard care
After MR CLEAN first reported in October 2014,5 most MT trials6-8, 10-13 stopped early. Study
Events Total Events Total OR, random, 95% CI
This effect might introduce bias, including an overestimation of the treatment effect. ESCAPE 17 164 28 147 0.5 (0.3 to 0.9)
However, in most cases, these trials stopped early only after accumulating data showed EXTEND-IA 3 35 7 35 0.4 (0.1 to 1.6)
that a predefined efficacy stopping point (favouring MT) had been reached.6, 7, 10-12 Only MR CLEAN 49 233 59 267 0.9 (0.6 to 1.4)
PISTE 7 33 4 32 1.9 (0.5 to 7.2)
two trials were stopped due to evidence removing the clinical equipoise necessary to
REVASCAT 19 103 16 103 1.2 (0.6 to 2.6)
continue randomising.8, 13 As regards more delayed MT (>6 hours), individual trials were SWIFT-PRIME 9 98 12 97 0.7 (0.3 to 1.8)
relatively small and used different selection criteria, so although the evidence for late MT THERAPY 6 50 11 46 0.4 (0.2 to 1.3)
THRACE 24 202 27 206 0.9 (0.5 to 1.6)
is still classed as level 1, it is not as strong as that for MT up to 6 hours.
Total (95% CI) 918 933 0.8 (0.6 to 1.1)
In addition to the reproducible consistent treatment effect seen in the early trials of MT, 0.1 0.2 0.5 1 2 5 10
Favours MT Favours standard care
sequential trial analysis shows no change in the odds ratio for treatment benefit with
inclusion of later trials (see Table 1 and Figure 3 for trials5-8, 10-13). In contradistinction
Procedural safety of MT
Table 2. Complications of MT.
A recent comprehensive narrative review by Balami et al summarises the whole field
succinctly.24 Mechanical thrombectomy is associated with a number of intraprocedural Procedural complications Other complications
and postoperative complications (Table 2), which need to be minimised and effectively • Access-site problems • Anaesthetic-related complications
managed to maximise the benefits. Overall, from the recent RCTs, the risk of complications • Vessel/nerve injury • Contrast-related complications
from MT with sequelae for the patient is approximately 15%. Minimising the frequency and • Access-site haematoma • Postoperative haemorrhage
impact of complications of MT is important to maximise the benefits of the intervention. • Groin infection • Extracranial haemorrhage
Some complications are life threatening, and many lead to increased length of stay in • Device-related complications • Pseudoaneurysm
intensive care and stroke units. Others increase costs and delay the start of rehabilitation. • Vasospasm
Some may be preventable; the impact of others can be minimised with early detection • Arterial perforation and dissection
and appropriate management. Both neurointerventionists and stroke specialists need • Device detachment/misplacement
to be aware of the risk factors, strategies for prevention, and management of these • Symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage
complications. Nonetheless, procedure-related morbidity and mortality nearly all occur • Subarachnoid haemorrhage
within 30 days and so are incorporated within the net benefit of MT on 90-day clinical • Embolisation to new or target vessel territory
outcomes, which strongly favour MT.
It is also critical to note that MT has been performed in all of the discussed trials by
Areas of uncertainty experienced neurointerventionists in centres with high volumes of neurointerventional
Current meta-analyses include hardly any patients with posterior circulation LAO. Although procedures. Neither the efficacy nor safety profile of MT has been confirmed for non-
the technical re-canalisation results of MT in the posterior circulation match those in the expert operators or low-volume units.
anterior in non-randomised series, the clinical benefit remains to be confirmed definitively
in posterior circulation strokes, and trials are ongoing. Recently the Chinese trial Cost-effectiveness of mechanical thrombectomy
of basilar artery occlusion was stopped early due to excess crossovers, and information A systematic review of economic evaluations on stent-retriever MT for AIS published in
has been presented but not published, indicating there was no benefit for MT on the 201832 identified 20 possibly relevant studies. After further screening and assessment,
intention-to-treat analysis but benefit in the as-treated analysis. Similar uncertainty eight original articles were included: three from the USA, one Canadian, one Swedish,
applies to patients with mild stroke (NIHSS<6) but confirmed LAO, those with LAO AIS one French and two from the UK (note that the PISTE data discussed above postdates
and more extensive early infarct changes, and those with more distal occlusions. Latest this systematic review). The findings of this systematic review are supported by primary
meta-analysis data from the collaboration indicate that MT is similarly effective studies with substantial methodological heterogeneity but consistently found that MT
in proximal M2 occlusions.30 is likely to be cost-effective (all eight studies) at a high probability level (79–100%) at
conventional thresholds or even cost-dominant (three of eight studies).
Trials are also required to investigate whether less selective brain imaging can be used to
select patients undergoing MT in the later time window and, conversely, whether there Several studies that assessed the cost-effectiveness of MT in combination with IVT
is benefit from wider use of advanced brain imaging in early presenters, in the use of compared with IVT alone concluded that MT is potentially cost-effective33-40 and cost-
general versus local anaesthesia in a pragmatic real-world situation, and in the use of MT saving.41-44 Two model-based cost-utility analyses from the perspective of the UK NHS
in patients with pre-stroke disability (mRS 2–4).31 have been published.36, 43 Based on one meta-analysis of RCTs, MT in combination
with IVT compared with IVT alone was associated with an additional £7,061 per The PISTE health economics team also calculated the value of implementation as the
gained.27 In the other study, carried out by the same team but based on individual patient value of perfect implementation minus the cost of implementation measured over a five-
record data from a RCT conducted in the USA and Europe (SWIFT-PRIME), MT in combination year time horizon. They estimated the maximum potential value of implementation as
with IVT was reported to be associated with cost-savings of £33,190 per patient.43 the NMB of achieving 100% MT implementation across the UK (51,404 patients treated
by MT over five years) and then subtracted from that the cost of expanding services,
One study has estimated the budget impact of adopting and implementing MT nationally equipment and staff in 29 s to operate 24/7 across the UK. The analysis included costs
in Eire. A national MT service would lead to incremental costs and benefits of €2,626 and of staff salaries and set-up costs, such as training and equipment, many of which were
0.19 QALYs per eligible patient. The was €14,016 per QALY at five years, with a not included in the Eire analysis. The value of perfect implementation is the NMB from
probability of being cost-effective of 99% at a threshold of €45,000 per QALY gained,35 MT (£36,484 per person) multiplied by the effective population (51,404). This implies that
and a 9% probability of the intervention being cost-saving relative to standard medical the expected value of perfect implementation in the UK would be £1.7 billion, set against
care. Based on treatment being delivered at two centres and treating 268 patients per an estimated cost of £413 million to implement, which suggests an expected value of
year, the cost of implementation to provide 24/7 coverage for the 4.8 million population of implementation of £1.3 billion over five years. The study also estimated the ‘break-even’
Eire was estimated to be €7.2 million over five years, comprising €3.3 million in the first year, point at which the NMB obtained from the proportion of eligible patients treated is equal
with estimated annual running costs thereafter of €0.8 million–€1.2 million.35 to the cost of implementation, which was about 30% – or about 3,000 patients treated
by MT per year.
However, when adopting ‘surgical’ interventions into clinical practice, there are appreciable
challenges to implementation, including investment in staff, capital equipment and service Conclusion
reorganisation, which will have an impact on cost-effectiveness calculations that do not Mechanical thrombectomy for anterior circulation stroke due to proven proximal LAO
consider the costs of service change and implementation.45 For the UK, the PISTE trial within 6 hours of stroke onset is safe and highly effective and sets the new standard of care.
team8 conducted an economic evaluation based on seven RCTs5-8, 10-12 to determine the The overall rate of independent functional outcome (mRS 0–2) at 90 days is about 20%
cost-effectiveness of MT but also estimated the monetary cost and value of enhancing greater with MT than with best medical therapy alone (which in most cases included IVT),
implementation of MT using UK clinical and cost data.37 and about half of patients achieve very good outcomes after MT. Favourable outcomes
from MT in most (but not all) patients are strongly time dependent (‘time is brain’),
In the PISTE analysis, cost-effectiveness was expressed as ICER and incremental . The and best results are achieved when early ischaemic brain injury is limited (for example,
NMB is a measure of the health benefit expressed in monetary terms, which incorporates ASPECTS score ≥6). If good re-canalisation is achieved within 4.5 hours, the absolute rate
the cost of the new strategy, the health gain obtained, and societal for those health of good functional outcome is 61%. In carefully selected patients (using advanced brain
gains. The economic model found that MT plus IVT had a total cost of £46,684 compared imaging techniques and applying trial selection criteria), MT between 6 and 24 hours
with £39,035 for IVT alone. Over a lifetime horizon, the intervention group gained after stroke onset is also highly effective and safe. Furthermore, MT is highly likely to be
7.61 QALYs compared with 5.41 in the control IVT group. This equates to an incremental cost-effective (at conventional WTP thresholds) or even cost-dominant over a lifetime
cost of £7,649 and 2.21 QALYs associated with the addition of MT to standard treatment analysis. The cost of fully implementing MT across the UK would be around £400
and an ICER of £3,466 per QALY. The incremental NMB was £36,484 per patient. One-way million but could give net savings of £1.3 billion over five years, offering unprecedented
sensitivity analysis on the key parameters driving the cost-effectiveness estimate of MT in promise both to patients with potentially disabling stroke and to healthcare systems by
this model found that varying all key parameters had no decisive impact on the ICER, with reducing the long-term costs of care.
all estimates remaining below £20,000 per QALY.
2 How many stroke patients in the UK are eligible for mechanical thrombectomy?
Peter McMeekin and Martin James
Key points
• in the UK is starting from a very low baseline of 0.9% of all strokes receiving MT.
• Based on the available evidence, about 11–12% of stroke patients admitted to hospital are eligible for MT.
• Advanced imaging has little effect on total eligibility, but its use would affect treatment decisions in about 16% of cases, ruling out and ruling in a similar number of patients.
The infrastructure demands for MT create the need for a more centralised model of Eligibility by stroke type, location and severity
hyperacute stroke care, and robust activity estimates are required for accurate planning We estimate that 41% of ischaemic strokes admitted to hospital are due to LAO
to inform service reconfiguration. We combined results from landmark s with data (Figure 5, points A/B).16, 48, 49 ‘Minor’ strokes ( <6) are not proven to benefit from MT
from registries to estimate the number of patients who would be eligible for MT in the and have not been included. Of the major RCTs, only
16 5
specifically enrolled
UK in one year.28 We also highlight the effect that advanced imaging techniques used in patients with NIHSS <6 and failed to show statistically significant benefit from in the
the most recent RCTs have on this estimate. subgroup with NIHSS 2–15. We applied an NIHSS cut-off of 6, aligning with the three
trials that included the largest numbers of patients in the NIHSS range 6–10. The
We developed a decision tree to estimate the proportion of all stroke patients eligible for study48 reported that 20% of LAO strokes had NIHSS <6 (Figure 5, point C), an
MT (Figure 5), independent of geographic or infrastructure constraints. Using national observation reinforced by recent UK data.49 These proportions give an annual estimate of
registry data from the prospective for England, Wales and Northern Ireland46 and 26,590 patients with moderate/severe stroke and LAO in the UK.
adjusted for Scotland using data from the ,47 we determined that 95,500 patients
with stroke are admitted to hospital each year. A decision tree was constructed based on
Time of onset and eligibility
key inclusion and exclusion criteria from published trials: stroke type, severity, presence of
Eligible patients were defined by a known onset time of <12 hours or had stroke of unknown
anterior or posterior , onset time, pre-stroke disability, the extent of ischaemia on
onset time with a time within 12 hours. Two recent RCTs included patients up to 16 hours
(or ), re-canalisation before MT and optional advanced imaging. These criteria were
( -3)15 and 24 hours ( )14 after LKW. Presentation times were derived from two
applied consistently irrespective of eligibility for IVT.
large UK centres (Northumbria and Exeter): 78% of patients with NIHSS ≥6 presented within 12
hours of known onset, with the remainder divided between unknown onset with LKW within
Further data on the distributions for stroke severity and onset time were extracted from
12 hours (68.5%) and known onset time >12 hours (31.5%) (Figure 5, points D/E).
two large UK stroke services. The final decision tree has 12 steps (see Figure 5) and
includes pathways using advanced imaging within and beyond 6 hours after stroke onset.
Those with known onset within 12 hours divide between 74% within 4 hours and 26%
Although basilar artery occlusions were not included in the trials, we have included them
between 4 and 12 hours46 (Figure 5, point F). After exclusions, two cohorts of patients
in our estimates of eligibility in early presenting patients because they are treated in
are potentially eligible for MT: ‘early presenters’ presenting within 4 hours, mostly eligible
practice, but we have not included those after 12 hours, as they represent a small but
for IVT within 4.5 hours, and ‘late presenters’, ineligible for IVT either because of onset >4 hours
imprecise number.
ago or because they had stroke of unknown time of onset but LKW within 12 hours.
At this point, about 24,750 (25%) of admissions are potentially eligible for MT. It is Admitted to hospital
95,500
assumed that only early presenters would be able to receive MT treatment within 6 hours
of onset.16 From this point onwards, the two groups (Figure 5, points G and H) are CT head scan result
differentially influenced by use of advanced imaging. 87% A 13%
Confirmed ischaemic Haemorrhagic

83,090 12,420
Imaging
CTA result
FIGURE 5. Eligible population: (A) Total UK population, including those deemed
to be geographically inaccessible; (B) Confirmed infarcts, excluding about 2% 40% B 60%
of patients whose status is unconfirmed. Besides cerebral infarcts, most acute Large artery occlusion
33,230
Small artery occlusion
49,850
subdural haematomas would also not be entered in to SSNAP or SSCA.

80% C 20%
(C) Includes basilar artery occlusions eligible for treatment if presenting within Moderate/severe stroke Mild stroke (NIHSS <6)
12 hours. Others are assumed eligible unless they meet any subsequent (NIHSS ≥6) 6,650
26,590
exclusion. (D) Early presenters – those presenting within 4 hours. Advanced imaging pathway
78% D 22% 5,850
See chapter text for descriptor of cut-off points E–N.
68.5% E 31.5%
NOTE: Patients within the large lower grey shaded box are all dealt with Known time of onset 95%
(KTO)/last known well Stroke unknown Presentation >12 hours
by advanced imaging (10,140–11,530 patients); those who are early presenters (LKW) <12 hours
20,740
time of onset and <24 hours Presentation >24 hours
4,010 1,620 230
(10,900 on the left-hand side) can bypass that step.
Early presenters F Late presenters 9,400
15,350d 5,390
25% H 75%
Clinical and radiological exclusions among the 71% G 29%

MT eligible Clinical/CT exclusions:
mRS >2, ASPECTS <6
Early presenters Clinical/CT exclusions:
intravenous thrombolysis-eligible population (receive IVT if eligible) mRS >2, ASPECTS <5 2,340 7,060
10,900 4,450
Early presenters comprise the largest group eligible for MT: 13,770 patients per year Advanced imaging (CTP or CTACS or MR) result
Advanced imaging
(14% of all stroke admissions). Exclusions within this group were 50
<6 or (CTP or CTAcs or MR)
result
5% M 95%
57% K 43%
visible infarction of more than one-third of the territory (up to 30% of patients16, 51) DAWN
inclusion
DAWN
ineligible
95% I 5%
and pre-stroke mRS ≥3 (about 9% of patients 16, 48

). Pre-stroke disability and thus Advanced imaging
inclusion: large volume
90 1,520
penumbral tissue or good Advanced imaging

would exclude about 29%. We estimate that among the early-presenting, IVT-eligible Advanced imaging inclusion:
large volume penumbral Advanced imaging
collateral circulation and
small core
exclusion
tissue or good collateral exclusion
population, 11% are eligible for MT before advanced imaging exclusions, equivalent to circulation and small core 1,330 1,010
10,360 545
10,900 patients per year (Figure 5, point G). 98% L 2%
7% J 93%
9,630 1,390
Various modes of advanced imaging ( , combined with ASPECTS, and MRI) have Re-canalised Re-canalised
725 30
been proposed to identify patients with salvageable brain tissue (penumbra) at any time
10,140
after onset. Data from 11
and the registry52 suggest that advanced 7% N 93%
imaging excludes 5% of early presenters with moderate/severe LAO stroke and pre-stroke Re-canalised UK eligible population
mRS <3 because of a large core and small penumbra. In the early-presenting group, 770
10,140–11,530
therefore, 500 patients would be excluded by advanced imaging, leaving a MT-eligible
population of 10,360 patients before any re-canalisation (Figure 5, point I).
Clinical and radiological exclusions among late presenters patients but would include about 36% (1,420/3,970) of late-presenting patients. Thus,
In patients who present with unknown onset but LKW within 12 hours or with known onset although the overall requirement (eligibility) for MT is relatively unchanged by advanced
time between 4 and 12 hours, information about MT eligibility is significantly less robust. In imaging, its use would affect decisions about MT treatment in about 16% (3,075/19,530)
patients with LAO we estimate 5,390 moderate-to-severe ischaemic strokes have a known of otherwise eligible patients.
time of onset of 4–12 hours and a further 4,010 would be LKW within 12 hours (1,610
between 12 and 24 hours and 2,400 after 24 hours46). This suggests that advanced imaging The proportion of patients appropriate for MT depends on the frequency of LAO, but
might identify salvageable brain tissue in 9,400 patients, with most having pre-stroke mRS previous reports vary. Recent MT trials report a rate of LAO of 48–53%.11, 12 Rai et al
<3 (Figure 5, point H). However, a high proportion (up to 73%) of late-presenting patients estimated the incidence of LAO as only 12% in a retrospective sample of nearly 3,000
are excluded by ASPECTS <6 on initial CT.20, 53 Pre-stroke disability would exclude another secondary referrals,57 whereas Smith et al identified a LAO rate of 46% in patients with
8%48 (203 patients), leaving only 25% (2,340 patients) of those considered for advanced confirmed stroke referred to two large academic centres in the USA, a proportion of
imaging as eligible for MT (Figure 5, point H). Of these, 1,330 would remain definitely which included the anterior and posterior cerebral arteries and M2 branches.48 A recent
eligible for MT as they have a small core (<70 ml) and large penumbra54 (Figure 5, point K). prospective study in the UK identified a LAO rate of 39%.49
Of the 1,830 patients excluded at point E in Figure 5 because they presented after 12 hours The main uncertainties are in the smaller group of late-presenting patients with LAO and
of onset, most presented within 24 hours (1,620 patients). Data from DAWN14 (Figure 5, NIHSS >6 (Figure 5, point H), for whom high-quality data are limited, as this population
point M) suggest that as few as 5% (90 patients) would be eligible for MT, giving a total is the least represented in trials. However, this group is small and so has relatively little
of 1,420 late-presenting patients eligible for MT. impact on overall outcomes.
The selection of patients by advanced imaging has a relatively modest effect on the overall
Re-canalisation prior to mechanical thrombectomy
numbers eligible for treatment but alters the eligibility decision in 16% of cases. The
A small proportion of patients will re-canalise spontaneously or in response to IVT before
impression that a relatively small proportion of early-presenting patients with LAO on
MT is performed. In the meta-analysis, this occurred in 7% of those receiving
would be subsequently ruled out by advanced imaging (5% in our model) is corroborated
IVT,16 and spontaneous re-canalisation in patients not receiving IVT is estimated at 2%55
by the EXTEND-IA trial.11 The results from the DAWN trial, in which advanced imaging
(Figure 5, points J and L). Re-canalisation prior to MT thus excludes 770 patients.
was used to select an unknown but small proportion of late-presenting patients for MT,
suggest that there is considerable further potential for benefit within this population.14
Discussion The magnitude of the absolute treatment effect (30% difference in an excellent outcome
Based on the available evidence, we estimate that 10,140–11,530 patients in the UK of mRS 0–2 with MT) suggests that the DAWN sample were overselected – an absolute
with AIS are eligible for MT annually – that is, about 11–12% of strokes admitted to benefit of 10%, akin to that seen in the MR CLEAN trial5 would mean that a far higher
hospital. Elsewhere, Chia et al56 estimated a range of 7–13% for MT eligibility among proportion of late presenters still stood to benefit from MT, albeit to a lesser extent.
patients presenting to two of three Australian hyperacute stroke sites. The lower bound Benefit for this group of patients will have to await clarification in further trials, so, for the
of our estimate is defined by restricting MT to early presenters (10,140 patients/year). time being, we are left applying MT to a highly selected group of late presenters according
The upper bound (11,530 patients/year) is defined by the inclusion of all early-presenting to the restrictive eligibility criteria for DAWN and DEFUSE-3,15 but we must anticipate that this
patients without the use of advanced imaging (10,140 patients/year) plus those late- proportion will rise as evidence accrues.
presenting patients with a favourable imaging profile (1,390 patients/year). Advanced
imaging might exclude about 5% (550/10,900) of early-presenting and otherwise eligible
Conclusion
Mechanical thrombectomy in the UK is starting from a very low baseline. In 2018–19,
1,200 MT treatments were recorded in SSNAP in England, Wales and Northern Ireland,
equivalent to 1.4% of all strokes, and with very few procedures in Scotland.4 The
midpoint of our estimate suitable for MT (11.3% of UK stroke admissions) combined
with the absolute benefits estimated in an individual patient data meta-analysis58
suggest that MT with national coverage could achieve an additional 2,550 patients with
independent functional outcomes or as many as 4,520 patients (5% all stroke admissions)
with a reduced level of disability compared to IVT alone. Implicit in these estimates is
the assumption that outcomes for posterior circulation MT (which are included in our
estimate of the early-presenting eligible population) are the same as those for anterior
circulation MT. Overall, between 10,140 and 11,530 stroke patients per year in the UK
could be eligible for MT based on current level 1 evidence, which approximates to 11–12%
of stroke admissions.
3 How many comprehensive and primary stroke centres should the UK have?
Michael Allen, Kerry Pearn, Martin James, Phil White and Ken Stein
Key points
• To maintain the recommended 600 admissions to any hyperacute stroke centre, the number of acutely admitting centres in the UK will need to be reduced. For example, the maximum
number of centres in England would be about 80.
• To maintain a minimum of 150 procedures per unit per year, the maximum number of MT-capable s would be about 40.
• A drip-and-ship system is justified in order to reduce time to first hospital and to limit admissions numbers to CSCs, but this will lead to some delay in MT for patients attending
a local first.
• Time to MT is reduced if patients directly attend a CSC, even if that involves travelling further than the nearest PSC. However, such decisions jeopardise the sustainability of networks
by overloading CSCs and reducing admissions to many PSCs to unsustainably low levels.
• Planning for both PSCs and CSCs should be performed with the largest possible footprint; planning at level is likely to lead to suboptimal service organisation for patients.
The advent of MT represents a disruptive innovation in the NHS, with substantial National guidelines recommend a minimum number of admissions to a PSC of 600 patients
implications for the configuration of hyperacute stroke services. These are conventionally per year,63 with a recommendation that travel time should be 30 minutes or less and not
divided between CSCs, which are both - and MT-capable, and PSCs, which deliver IVT more than 60 minutes.64 There is no guidance on the maximum size of a PSC/CSC, but
but depend on secondary transfer to a CSC for MT treatment. In the UK, the proportion NHS England reconfiguration guidance recommends a maximum of 1,500 admissions for a
of patients receiving IVT is consistently about 11%,59 although higher rates have been single team,64 and the largest CSC in the UK currently has more than 2,000 admissions.59 A
achieved as a result of the reconfiguration of urban PSCs,59, 60 with rates of 20% or more.59 unit admitting 1,500 patients with strokes/year will also admit and manage, on average, a
further 500 mimics, representing around six patients per day.65
Broadly speaking, two main models of hyperacute stroke care have been described.61, 62
In a ‘mothership’ model, all patients with suspected stroke are taken directly to a CSC, possibly Multisociety consensus standards for MT centres have been published,66 with guidance on
bypassing a nearer PSC. This is at the expense of greater onset-to-treatment times for the minimum number of neurovascular procedures, including MT, to maintain individual
IVT for some patients, but such a system removes the need for any secondary transfers operator skills67 advising at least 40 procedures/operator/year. In high-volume centres in
by road ambulance or helicopter. In a so-called ‘drip-and-ship’ model (sometimes called the USA (with at least 132 MT procedures/year), outcomes are significantly better than
‘treat-and-transfer’), local IVT may be delivered at PSCs before an eligible subset of at smaller centres.68 A robust 24/7 MT service realistically requires at least five operators,
patients diagnosed with are transferred to the CSC. The choice between these and all five could not expect to meet minimum activity levels to maintain competence if
models can depend on geography and travel times, availability of appropriately skilled the centre volume was less than 150 MT procedures/year, equivalent to 1,500 confirmed
staff, urban/rural split and other factors, including the maximum practical size of a CSC stroke admissions/year.
under a mothership configuration and the minimum recommended size of a PSC in a
drip-and-ship model.
Computer modelling allows the advantages and disadvantages of different configurations Figure 6. The effect of changing the total number of stroke centres (PSCs
of hyperacute stroke care to be explored. Identifying good solutions requires multiple plus CSCs) on (a) travel times, (b) admission numbers and (c) ability to meet
competing parameters to be considered – travel time needs to be minimised, while the travel time and admissions targets. Results show best identified solutions for each
number of admissions needs to be controlled. We have previously described detailed optimisation parameter (but these may not necessarily be achieved simultaneously).
methods for this kind of computer modelling based on the population of England.69-71
Our findings therefore specifically relate to England, but similar principles will relate to
the other UK nations, with still greater geographical challenges in some parts of Scotland (a) (b)
prompting a greater degree of compromise over travel times and institutional size.
Largest unit (smaller is better)
Smallest unit (larger is better)
(log scale)
Total number of stroke centres
Maintaining the number of stroke centres (that is, CSCs plus PSCs) in England at a
maximum of 127 centres (the current number of acutely admitting sites) reduces average
travel time, increases the proportion of patients within a target of 30 minutes (to a
maximum of 90%), and controls the size of the largest unit below 2,000 admissions/year
(Figure 6b). However, above 85 acute sites, the proportion of patients attending a centre
with ≥600 admissions/year progressively reduces (Figure 6c). Configurations with ≥80%
of patients within 30 minutes of a centre admitting ≥600 patients/year have between 70 and
95 centres, with varying trade-off between travel time and unit size. If configurations are
further constrained by a maximum number of admissions to any single centre of 2,000/year,
with at least 80% of patients within 30 minutes’ travel, this narrows the potential range further (c )
to between 73 and 81 centres.
We have also examined the effect of planning footprint size on the ability to meet these
travel time and admission targets.71 In brief, the smaller the planning footprint, the
poorer the performance of the system, with planning at individual STP level leading to
significantly reduced ability to meet travel time and admission targets than planning over
a larger area, such as NHS regions. Practically, hyperacute stroke care planning should
be performed with as large a footprint as can realistically be achieved – in England, STPs
should group together for planning purposes rather than seeking to plan at an individual
STP level. These findings have important implications for NHS England’s proposals to plan
and provide hyperacute stroke care through s mapped to STP geography.
Comprehensive stroke centres
Current levels of access to existing neuroscience centres are shown in the map (Figure 7), Figure 7. Current access to existing neuroscience centres.
with some populous areas of England in the East and South West not well served for
emergency access. As with IVT-capable centres, there is a balance between providing Time to MT
optimal access to CSCs and maintaining sufficient numbers of MT procedures (≥150/year) unit (mins)
to maintain centre/operator skills and achieve the best clinical outcomes. Under a pure
mothership model, the maximum number of CSCs that could deliver ≥150 procedures
per year is 40 (Figure 8c). The fastest average travel time for any configuration with
≥150 procedures/centre/year is 29 minutes, with 62%, 85% and 95% of patients within 30,
45 and 60 minutes, respectively, of their closest CSC. Under these parameters, the largest
of the 40 CSCs would admit about 3,000 patients with stroke per year (plus mimics).
Unfeasibly large admission numbers for many CSCs and excessive travel times for some
patients would indicate that a pure mothership model is unsustainable. Such large
admission numbers are mitigated in a drip-and-ship model. For this configuration, we
took the 24 current neuroscience centres in England as a baseline CSC configuration
and sequentially added PSCs from the subset of 103 remaining current sites, with the
assumption that patients travel first to their closest centre of either type. We assumed a
net delay to MT of 60 minutes for those patients taken first to a PSC (not the same as the
‘ ’ time, as it is partly compensated by shortened diagnostic time at the receiving CSC).
If additional PSCs are chosen to minimise the average time to arrival at the first centre,
increasing the number of PSCs reduces average time to IVT but increases the average
time to MT (Figure 9). With only 24 CSCs (a pure mothership model), average time to
arrival for MT and IVT is 38 minutes, with 71% of patients arriving within 45 minutes’
travel. If, at the other extreme, a drip-and-ship model includes all of the remaining 103 sites
as PSCs, the average time to arrival for IVT is reduced from 38 to 18 minutes, but the
average time to arrival for MT is substantially increased from 38 to 96 minutes.
If all stroke centres have a minimum of 600 admissions/year, the maximum number of
additional PSCs would be 58 (82 centres in total), and all centres would admit between
600 and 1,810 strokes/year. In an 82-centre configuration, average time to arrival for IVT
falls from 38 minutes (with 24 CSCs only) to 22 minutes, with 80%, 94% and 98% of
patients arriving within 30, 45 and 60 minutes, respectively. However, the average time
to MT is increased from 38 to 89 minutes.
Figure 8. The effect of changing the number of CSCs, using a mothership-only Ambulance bias
model, on (a) travel times (direct to CSC), (b) admission numbers and (c) ability In a mixed configuration of PSCs and CSCs, ambulance clinicians may exhibit a preference
to meet travel time and procedure targets. Results show best identified solutions for to convey suspected stroke cases directly to the CSC, even if a PSC is closer – a phenomenon
each optimisation parameter (but these may not necessarily be achieved simultaneously). observed anecdotally, which we have called ‘ambulance bias’. For example, a 15-minute
ambulance bias would mean that a paramedic crew would prefer to convey a patient
(a) (b) directly to a more distant CSC if it involved no more than 15 minutes of extra travel time
in the hope of expediting MT for those eligible, albeit at the expense of a delay to IVT.
We modelled the impact of ambulance bias in a drip-and-ship model, with 24 CSCs
located at the current neuroscience centres and 103 PSCs at all remaining sites. Generally,
delaying IVT by directly attending a CSC increases average time to IVT and decreases
average time to MT (Figure 10). However, the effects are not equal; a bias of 15 minutes
increases average time to IVT by just 2 minutes while reducing average time to MT by
20 minutes. This phenomenon affects 25% of all patients, who have an average delay
in IVT of 8 minutes, but the smaller number of patients eligible for MT have an average
improvement in time to treatment of 80 minutes.
Figure 9. Travel times in a drip-and-ship

model, in which all patients first attend
their closest centre, with onward travel
(c )
to a CSC for MT if necessary. The base
case has 24 CSCs (located in the 24 current
neuroscience centres), with the chart
showing the effect of adding PSCs selected
from the remaining 103 stroke centres to
minimise average travel time to the first Travel time to IVT
Travel time to MT
Zoom in hospital. Onward travel for MT includes the
transfer travel time and a net 60-minute
delay at the PSC. Number of PSCs (in addition to 24 CSCs)
Attending a unit with 1,500 admissions/year

Within 30 minutes
Zoom in
However, the greatest impact of ambulance bias is its destabilising effect on admission current 127 acute sites to between 73 and 81 centres (CSCs plus PSCs) would render it
numbers to hospitals (Figure 11). In a typical mixed configuration of 24 CSCs (located possible for all stroke patients to attend a unit of sufficient size but with a reduction in
at the current 24 neuroscience centres) and 103 PSCs, as ambulance bias increases, the proportion of patients within 30 minutes’ travel from the current 90% to 80–82%
increasing numbers of PSCs fall well below recommended levels of activity, and CSCs risk and with 95% and 98% of patients within 45 and 60 minutes’ travel time, respectively.
being overwhelmed. With a 30-minute ambulance bias (known to occur anecdotally),
more than two-thirds of PSCs have fewer than 300 admissions/year. At the same time, Figure 11. A drip-and-ship model, in which all patients first attend their closest
the number of CSCs with more than 2,500 admissions/year increases to 11 (the largest centre, with onward travel to a CSC if they require MT. In a configuration of 24 CSCs and
admitting more than 5,000/year) and about half of all acute stroke admissions are direct 103 PSCs, the panels show the effect of ‘ambulance bias’ in travelling directly to a CSC.
to a CSC. The violin plot (a) shows the effect on admissions to the first admitting centres: range,
median (middle bar) and distribution (shaded body). The right panel (b) shows the effect
Travel time to IVT
Figure 10. A drip-and-ship model, Travel time to MT on the number of centres below or above the stated threshold of annual admissions.
in which all patients first attend
their closest centre, with onward
travel to a CSC if they require MT. (a) (b)
In a configuration of 24 CSCs and 103 ,
PSCs, the chart shows the effect of
‘ambulance bias’ in travelling directly
,
to a CSC. The lines show average time
to arrival for MT (purple line) and IVT
(green line). Onward travel for MT ,
includes the transfer travel time and a

60-minute net delay in receiving MT. Ambulance decision bias (allowable delay) year
,
to go directly to CSC (minutes) 2,500 year
Discussion
Our modelling of national configurations of hyperacute stroke centres, designed to ,
replicate the population benefits from centralisation of acute stroke services, has shown
the feasibility but also the compromises necessary to maximise these benefits. Currently,
61% of patients with acute stroke are admitted to a stroke unit with at least 600
admissions per year,59 and the NHS Long Term Plan (for England) proposes to increase this Ambulance decision bias (allowable delay) Ambulance decision bias (allowable delay)
to go directly to CSC (minutes) to go directly to CSC (minutes)
through centralisation into fewer, larger units.72
Zoom in
These centres would have staffing levels and competencies as specified in national
standards73, 74 and provide intensive (level 2) nursing and medical care for the initial
72 hours after onset (on average) before repatriation of the patient to local stepdown
services for ongoing acute care and rehabilitation. In our model, a reduction from the
Any large-scale reconfiguration of hyperacute stroke services involves striking a ambulance provision for transfer to a CSC (as is now done in Eire and Catalonia).77 It is
compromise between institutional size and travel time, with differential effects from clear that the substantial impact on ambulance services would need to be considered
centralisation in urban and rural areas. In seeking to balance these often-competing with any of these strategies.
priorities, an additional issue arises in avoiding any large CSC being overwhelmed by
unprecedented numbers of suspected stroke admissions (true strokes plus mimics). In The optimum balance between CSCs and PSCs will vary across the country. In particular,
accommodating this constraint, we sought solutions where the largest unit had no more where populations are dense and differences in travel times between centres are small,
than 2,000 confirmed stroke admissions/year, which is the current largest English CSC such as in major metropolitan areas, there is little to be gained from imposing a further
at Salford Royal Hospital. In centralised configurations with all centres admitting delay to treatment by calling first at a non-MT-capable PSC, and services are ideally
between 600 and 2,000 admissions/year, fewer than 10% of centres would have more than delivered entirely through CSCs. In London, this would be in potentially fewer CSCs than
1,500 admissions/year. Large-scale reconfigurations raise significant issues around the the existing eight s. Where populations are less dense in more rural areas, additional
capacity of a small number of very large CSCs, both in infrastructure and workforce, PSCs will be required to limit the maximum time from onset to assessment for IVT at the
and the potential disadvantages of such large centres cannot simply be disregarded. first hospital. However, if there remains an ‘oversupply’ of more local IVT services, time
Nonetheless, centralisation to 75–85 centres could be expected to provide a significant to MT will be increased significantly for the sake of only marginal improvements in time
benefit to most patients. To yield these benefits, the large majority of patients will travel to IVT. The principal justification for maintaining PSCs in some areas may therefore be to
only moderately further (if at all) to reach a CSC or PSC. The potential disbenefits are to mitigate an otherwise unmanageable number of direct admissions to CSCs.
the approximately 1.5% of the population who would be more than 60 minutes away
from a reconfigured centre (compared with 0.3% with the current 127 sites) and to the It may be considered clinically justifiable to accept a small delay in IVT for patients to be
2% of patients who are currently within 30 minutes of an existing site but who, with taken straight to a CSC, as this may significantly reduce overall time to MT at the cost
centralisation, will travel more than 45 minutes to their nearest centre. Consideration of a smaller effect on time to IVT (see Figure 10).70 Indeed this clinical justification is
therefore needs to be given to how the longer travel times, and possible delays in anecdotally reported to influence decision-making by ambulance paramedics, who may
treatment, might be mitigated for these patients and how the use of air ambulance be willing to travel 15–30 minutes further to deliver the patient to a MT-capable centre;
services for secondary transfer might prove to be both faster and cost-effective for the to this can be added the practicality of trying to avoid being called back to the closer
most remote 1.5% (only 11–12% of whom might require MT).75 PSC a short time later to convey the same patient to a CSC. Our work has shown how
this phenomenon of ambulance bias has the potential to destabilise stroke networks
In an ideal configuration of hyperacute stroke care, all patients would live close to a CSC by simultaneously overwhelming CSCs and denuding PSCs of admissions, reducing a
offering high-quality acute stroke unit care and both IVT and MT, but our studies suggest significant number of the latter below a threshold that might be considered sustainable
that providing all acute stroke care in CSCs in England (that is, a ‘pure mothership’ model) (see Figure 11). This factor must be built in when planning systems of care, as to disregard
is not likely to be deliverable. On this basis, a hybrid model of CSCs and PSCs seems it risks substantial unintended consequences. Although some might suggest that this
inevitable and desirable. Such a model of care reduces time to admission at the first effect could be mitigated through the widespread use of pre-hospital selection scales for
centre (providing IVT) but will delay MT for many eligible patients. The delay comes from LAO stroke (such as the test, currently the subject of a 78
), the low specificity of
additional transport time and from organisational delays in arranging/starting onward such tests suggests they would have a disappointingly small impact on the large numbers
travel.76 This delay could be reduced by having ambulances wait at the first-admission of patients who are preferentially transferred directly to a CSC.
hospitals in case / indicates that MT is required or by otherwise prioritising
Although clinicians are familiar with the concept of ‘time is brain’ for both IVT and MT Additional contributors to this chapter
(better described as ‘time is disability’), a refinement of a purely time-based approach Professor Gary A Ford, Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Academic Health Science Network
would be to base modelling directly on clinical outcomes. Holodinsky et al examined Dr Peter McMeekin, Reader, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University,
the likely outcomes of drip-and-ship versus mothership models of care, focussing on Newcastle upon Tyne
decisions that maximise the likelihood of a good clinical outcome for any individual
Professor Anthony G Rudd, Consultant Stroke Physician, Kings College London and Guy’s
patient.61, 62 They demonstrated that clinical outcomes in a hybrid mixture of PSCs and
and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, London
CSCs are sensitive to both the initial delay in alerting help and the time taken to assess
and, when necessary, refer patients in the PSC onwards. Stroke networks will need to Funding declaration
systematically address both of these issues if the population benefit from IVT and MT is This study was part-funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR)
to be maximised. At present, indications are that these stroke networks, in England at Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care for the South West
least (to be termed ‘ISDNs’), will be based around the current geographical unit of NHS Peninsula. The views and opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the authors,
planning – the STP/integrated care system. Our modelling has shown that population and not necessarily those of the NHS, the National Institute for Health Research, or the
units of this size are too small for planning complex systems of hyperacute stroke care – in Department of Health.
many or most places that require significant reconfiguration of services for both IVT and
MT, planning at a regional or national level is needed if the benefits are to be optimised.71
Conclusion
In the recent past, apart from a handful of notable exceptions mainly in metropolitan
areas, reconfiguration of stroke services to optimise delivery of IVT and other hyperacute
interventions in the UK has stalled. The advent of MT as a highly effective intervention for
a significant minority of stroke patients is a disruptive innovation, which should stimulate
the rationalisation of services and the urgent development of new capacity to deliver the
treatment. This should occur in a planned way, using the largest possible planning footprint
(ideally the NHS regions in England and the devolved administrations elsewhere in the
UK), taking full account of the impact of shifting admission and repatriation numbers;
imminent further expansions of the eligible population for MT; and other behavioural
issues such as ambulance bias. The twin objectives of maximising the population benefit
from these interventions within a sustainable system are best served by an increase in
the number of CSCs offering MT within an overall reduction in the number of centres
offering hyperacute care (including IVT) organised in collaborative regional networks.
Metropolitan areas will be best served by a small number of large CSCs with a direct-to-
mothership policy, but more dispersed populations will require a hybrid arrangement of
CSCs and PSCs in order to limit the maximum time to IVT through the use of a drip-and-
ship approach.
4 Organising ambulance services for effective implementation of mechanical thrombectomy
Chris Price and John Black

Key points
• Ambulance services and commissioners must be involved early in the planning of acute stroke pathways, including repatriation pathways.
• The content of a national emergency pathway for suspected stroke, which includes options for primary and secondary transfer for MT, should be standardised.
• Services must plan to deal with the resource implications of an increasing number of MT secondary 'drip-and-ship' transfers.
• The content of training and audit to support effective deployment of the emergency stroke pathway needs to be established.
• Services should be prepared for rapid adoption of technology that can improve the accuracy of identification.
Current pre-hospital pathways • Ambulance on-scene times should be kept to a minimum, and investigations more
The centralisation of stroke care already requires ambulance services to provide pathways appropriately undertaken on arrival in hospital (e.g. 12-lead ) should not be performed
promoting rapid access to specialist care in line with national clinical guidelines.73 Regional on scene (see below). However, no national target is set or monitored, and a lengthier
variations exist, but the current core components are: assessment to identify patients potentially suitable for MT may prolong on-scene time.
• Call handlers should be trained to recognise people with symptoms indicating possible • Transfer to the nearest may require bypass of the nearest hospital. Pre-hospital
acute stroke, using dedicated clinical prioritisation software such as NHS Pathways/ redirection does not generally add significant extra journey time, as transport times
, and to initiate an emergency response consistent with national ambulance to nearest HASUs are <60 minutes in most parts of England. Some regions avoid this
standards (that is, Category 2). Although this is unlikely to change because of MT, through remote video assessment by a stroke specialist once the patient arrives at the
operational staff and standards need to take into account that the emergency care nearest hospital. However, the much smaller number of regional centres providing MT
pathway for stroke is becoming more complex, with potential implications for means it will be necessary to balance the efficiency of pre-hospital redirection versus
dispatched crews. assessment in hospital with and without video.
• Ambulance clinicians should identify patients with suspected stroke before they arrive • Ambulance pre-arrival alerts to the or HASU are associated with significant
at the hospital, using simple and sensitive clinical checklists such as . As FAST may improvements in time to and intervention for stroke patients.
not identify stroke causing other symptoms, such as loss of co-ordination and vision,
paramedics are also encouraged to make a provisional diagnosis based on clinical When interpreting national guidelines, the results of a recent survey of stroke pathways
judgement alone. Hypoglycaemia should always be excluded by measurement of capillary within ambulance services in the UK show considerable variation (Table 3).79 Pathways
blood glucose. However, even with the use of FAST and blood glucose assessments, were last formally updated between 2011 and 2018. During expansion of MT provision,
40% of pre-hospital suspected stroke patients later receive a non-stroke (‘mimic’) final it will be important for regions to consider whether differences may impact on efficient
diagnosis after admission, as many conditions produce similar symptoms, and there is no direct transfers for treatment, such as the conscious level ( ) threshold below which
standardised training content on stroke identification for ambulance personnel. patients will be taken to the nearest ED rather than HASU.
Table 3. Content of UK ambulance stroke pathways in May 2018. Adapted from for MT. These patients should be identified early and rapidly transported to a MT centre
McClelland et al (2018).79 to reduce time to treatment. In addition, as advanced imaging becomes more widely
available and treatment decisions for patients with unknown symptom onset (e.g. wake-
Stroke Capillary glucose up presentation) can be based on objective quantification of potentially salvageable brain
Ambulance Time GCS Seizures
identification (mmol/L) tissue, the proportion of cases needing secondary transfer to MT centres will increase further.
service (hours) exclusion excluded
tool exclusion
1 FAST 4 <8 <4.0 Yes If the nearest HASU provides MT on site, there may be no immediate impact on emergency
2 FAST 4.5 Yes ambulance cycle times. However, as 100 HASUs currently do not have a MT facility, all
ambulance services will be affected by increasing use of a ‘drip-and-ship’ secondary
3 FAST 5 Conscious <3.0 Yes
transfer model for patients assessed as potentially suitable for MT by the initial HASU.
4 FAST + AVVV 4.5
Currently, there are no clinical or diagnostic processes used by UK ambulance services to
5 FAST 5.5 <4.0 Yes identify patients who may be suitable to bypass the current HASU and transfer directly to
6 FAST a MT centre (see below).
7 FAST Variable <4.0 Yes
8 FAST 3 To provide an efficient MT service, services must consider the following:
• Ambulance resources – Additional rapid transfer may be required from the initial HASU
FAST
9 Variable <3.5 to the MT centre, which is likely to increase pressure on emergency frontline ambulance
MEND
responsiveness for other emergencies in the community. The potential impact needs
10 FAST 4.5 Hypoglycaemia
to be considered by commissioners. It is important that this secondary transfer receives
11 FAST 5 <11 <3.5
the same emergency response as the initial dispatch (Ambulance Response Programme
12 FAST 4.5 <4.0 Interfacility Category 2), as this is a confirmed time-critical emergency. Observational
FAST evidence suggests that the time is at least 60–90 minutes, because of initial
13 Leg/visual <12 <8 Yes clinical and radiological assessment, communication between sites, initiation (and in
symptoms
many cases, completion) of , and availability of a second emergency ambulance.
14 FAST 4 As HASU DIDO times improve (potentially to as little as 30 minutes), it may be feasible
for the first ambulance to wait while the patient is assessed to reduce the risk of an
ambulance transfer delay if an initial rapid screen during handover in hospital confirms
The impact of MT on regional ambulance services
that MT may be appropriate. An Australian study demonstrated that using the initial
The main immediate impact of MT provision for ambulance services will reflect the
ambulance crew for secondary transfer was associated with shorter DIDO times.77
further centralisation of specialist care for a small proportion of patients with major
stroke. It is estimated that 10% of emergency stroke admissions are suitable for MT,29
although there will be geographical variation. In the current system, using FAST alone for
identification of possible stroke, five out of 100 suspected stroke patients who present to
ambulance services are likely to have the clinical and radiological characteristics appropriate
• Skills – During secondary transfer, an intravenous infusion may be required to continuously Table 4. Examples of published LAO symptom scales.78, 80, 81
administer medication for thrombolysis or parenteral -lowering treatment (if agreed
78 80 81
by local protocols). Current trials of tenecteplase offer the prospect of alteplase infusion
being replaced in the future by bolus tenecteplase injection. Transfer should not be Facial palsy Facial palsy • Gaze in only one direction (1)
delayed waiting for these treatments to finish. Ambulance clinicians are not currently • Absent or mild (0) • Normal or minor paralysis (0) • Face/facial drop (1)
• Mild (1) • Partial or complete paralysis (1) • Arms/legs week (1)
trained to supervise thrombolytic infusions or provide emergency management of
• Moderate to severe (2) Arm weakness • Speech slurred, confused (1)
hypertension during acute stroke. An appropriately trained healthcare professional Arm motor function • No drift (0) • Time lost is brain lost (1)
(doctor or nurse) from the HASU will be required to accompany a patient receiving • Normal to mild (0) • Drift or some effort against
an alteplase infusion during ambulance transfer to supervise clinical management, and • Moderate (1) gravity (1)
protocols will need to be developed for responses to complications such as angioedema, • Severe (2) • No effort against gravity or no
Leg motor function movement (2)
bleeding and seizures. An anaesthetic transfer may occasionally be needed.
• Normal to mild (0) Speech changes
• Air ambulance – Secondary transfer by air ambulance may need to be considered in parts • Moderate (1) • Absent (0)
of England where transfer times to the MT centre are likely to exceed 60 minutes, as this • Severe (2) • Mild to moderate (1)
may reduce call-to-intervention times in these circumstances. Most s providing MT Head and gaze deviation • Severe, global aphasia or mute (2)
• Absent (0) Eye deviation
will be located at hospitals with tertiary neuroscience and major trauma centres with
• Present (1) • Absent (0)
helipad facilities and will be accustomed to receiving patients by helicopter. Aphasia* (if right hemiparesis) • Partial (1)
• Performs both tasks correctly (0) • Forced deviation (2)
Selective pre-hospital redirection of suspected large • Performs one task correctly (1) Denial/neglect
• Performs neither task (2) • Absent (0)
artery occlusion Agnosia† (if left hemiparesis) • Extinction to bilateral
Clinical identification scales • Performs both tasks correctly (0) simultaneous stimulation in only
• Performs one task correctly (1) one sensory modality (2)
Once stroke is suspected, ambulance services in the UK currently have no additional pre- • Performs neither task (2) • Does not recognise own hand or
hospital stratification to identify patients potentially suitable for MT. Identification scales orients only to one side of the
for LAO that use combinations of neurological symptoms to create a score indicating the body
probability of LAO have been published (Table 4).82-84
Total score 0–9 Risk of LAO stroke Total score 0–4
• Score ≥5 indicates possibility of • Score 0–1: <15% • Score 3–4 considered
Most were developed through retrospective analysis of hospital datasets compared LAO • Score 2–3: ~30% ‘positive’ for possible LAO
• Score ≥4: ≥~60%
against a radiological diagnosis.85 Consequently, they do not reflect the typical suspected
stroke population presenting to ambulance services, and it is unclear how well they would *Aphasia: Ask the patient to (1) “Close your eyes”, and (2) “Make a fist”, and evaluate if the patient obeys.
work in practice. When the scale was evaluated prospectively in an ambulance †Agnosia: Ask the patient: (1) “Whose arm is this?” while showing them the paretic arm, and evaluate if they recognise their
o wn arm, and (2) “Can you lift both arms and clap” and evaluate if they recognise their functional impairment.
population, a score >4/9 resulted in 85% sensitivity and 68% specificity for LAO.78
Other scores are unlikely to have higher degrees of accuracy because: concerns that it may extend the pre-hospital phase without necessarily changing the patient
• 12% of hospitalised strokes are due to haemorrhage destination or treatment.86, 87 Ambulance services in the UK are increasingly investing
• lacunar stroke can occasionally result in a high symptom severity score due to face/arm/ in this capability, and this approach could enable accurate pre-hospital identification of
leg weakness ( >10), but LAO will not be present patients who are more likely to have LAO and be suitable for MT. The use of a LAO
• ‘atypical’ mild LAO presentations can occur (20% – see Chapter 2) identification scale by the ambulance service may help identify patients suitable for review
• mimic conditions will not be excluded by a remote stroke specialist, who can then use their expertise in history, examination and
• some symptoms may not yet have developed at the early stage when ambulance interpretation and knowledge of mimics to decide between direct transfer to a MT centre,
personnel assess patients HASU or ED. Although the specialist would not be able to specifically identify LAO among
• in some patients, MT would not be appropriate, even if LAO is present, for other ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke, it is more likely that the redirected group would be
reasons, such as pre-existing severe dementia or disability. eligible for treatment and mimic transfers could be reduced.
The best-case scenario (in hospital populations with few mimics) is that clinical scores As technology is becoming more affordable and reliable, clinical trials are evaluating the
fail to identify 20% of LAOs in exchange for 15% false-positive identification of mimics. benefits for thrombolysis delivery when combined with ambulances offering head CT
Clinical cut-off scores with sensitivity of 90% would label most suspected stroke patients scan capability.88 Although there is already published evidence that adapted ambulances
as possible LAO due to low specificity, which would defeat the purpose of pre-hospital (‘mobile stroke units’ with a physician and CT scanner on board) can reduce time from call
stratification and risk overwhelming CSCs.85 Therefore, although some patients suitable to initiation of by 15–30 minutes, the resource implications are substantial and there
for MT may receive faster treatment following routine pre-hospital application of a is currently no evidence that MT is facilitated, although this seems likely.89, 90 The mobile
LAO scale, arrangements must be in place to enable rapid secondary transfer of ‘false- stroke unit trials showed benefit for patients living near large urban HASUs where the
negative’ patients with LAO who were not identified pre-hospital to ensure that LAO vehicle was housed and vascular neurologists were immediately available. The units were
cases with unusual or deteriorating symptoms are still able to receive treatment. Similar not part of regional ambulance service provision, and a standard emergency ambulance
to some regional HASU models, it would also be essential to have systems in place for was dispatched in parallel because most patients were either stroke cases that did not
efficient repatriation of untreated stroke and mimic patients from the centre, who will receive thrombolysis or mimic presentations that needed transfer to ED. Although mobile
arrive in significantly larger volumes than through a drip-and-ship approach. stroke units can reduce treatment times for IVT in specific high-resource settings, further
evidence is needed to show whether a remote or direct specialist review pre-hospital can
Overall, the attractiveness of direct pre-hospital transfer for patients with LAO symptoms facilitate MT.
is offset by the complexities created in terms of false-positive direct transfers and false-
negative LAO patients who still arrive at the local HASU or ED first. Systems to deal Diagnostics
with these groups would need to be very actively managed across a large geographical There is currently no point-of-care diagnostic test for stroke or LAO for use in ambulances.
area and involve an additional burden falling on ambulance services. However, clinical However, because of the obvious benefits, this is an expanding research topic, with
identification scales may be useful in future as a first triage tool to decide whether to clinical trials currently evaluating point-of-care blood assays and non-invasive portable
activate a remote specialist review or deploy a point-of-care diagnostic for LAO. devices to help identify ischaemic stroke, haemorrhagic stroke, LAO and stroke mimics.
If these technologies are supported by clear clinical evidence, hospital and ambulance
Remote stroke specialist review services should prepare to adopt them by agreeing on funding, their role in the clinical
Remote video review by a stroke specialist is not a new concept but has previously been pathway, and training implications.
limited by the lack of technology in ambulances to support implementation and by
Training All English ambulance services regularly audit and report their responsiveness for patients
There is no standardised training module for pre-hospital stroke pathways, and most with acute stroke to NHS England, and compliance with a stroke care diagnostic care
training is provided within individual services. This approach has been reasonable for use bundle is published nationally.93 This is reported for the whole emergency stroke pathway,
of FAST to initiate a linear pathway, but more standardised content or models may be using data from both ambulance and hospital services to establish delays and identify
required to provide workforce training for an additional pre-hospital LAO identification training needs, and should be extended to recognise the whole MT pathway, as well
step plus redirection response. Previous observational studies have shown that whole- as initial IVT. As well as service-level audit, feedback to individual paramedics about
service system performance for IVT delivery can be changed through a programme of adherence to clinical protocols improves performance.94
multidisciplinary workshops to implement new clinical protocols,91 whereas specific
aspects of care – such as reducing the time on scene – can be addressed by smaller scale
initiatives targeted at paramedics.92
Training content will need to remain under review to enable effective future deployment
of a new diagnostic and remote specialist video assessment. As advanced imaging
becomes more widespread for patient selection, it will also be necessary for training to
acknowledge that selected patients with an unknown onset time (for example, those
waking with symptoms) should have the same MT response as those known to have
onset within the previous 6 hours.
Audit
The evidence underpinning MT treatment clearly shows the importance of minimising
delays along the whole pathway from symptom onset. Due to the additional brain
imaging required and possible secondary transfer to a MT centre, efficient early care
is particularly important – for example, the time spent on scene should be as short as
possible once stroke is suspected.
For all suspected stroke cases with recent onset, it is necessary to have an audit standard
for on-scene time, as well as initial response. This is a potentially complex issue, as
introduction of remote assessment or diagnostics may extend on-scene time but reduce
the overall time from onset to MT through efficient early stratification and pre-notification.
As well as services aiming to achieve a maximum on-scene target time for all suspected
acute stroke (for example, 20 minutes), this should be reported separately for MT cohorts
in the context of overall onset-to-treatment time.
5 Imaging for stroke thrombectomy and resource implications
Alexander Mortimer
Key points
• Stroke requires additional imaging for patient selection, and a combination of and represents the most appropriate combination to allow this.
• Most patients will be imaged in s before onward referral to s, and standard protocols are required.
• The relatively low levels of MT currently being performed in the UK are, in part, due to lack of routine use of CTA in local stroke imaging protocols.
• A number of solutions exist to aid better implementation of the necessary imaging, but most need increased resourcing and appropriate training in image interpretation.
• The role of multiphase CTA or in addition to standard /CTA remains unclear in early presenting patients. For late presenters, either approach may be used up to 6–12 hours,
but current evidence only supports CTP triage thereafter, so, in the longer term, implementation of advanced imaging will be required in addition to CT/CTA.
Emergency vascular imaging of stroke due to is a critical step in the selection of universal coverage in all hospitals receiving emergency stroke patients represents the first
appropriate patients for onward referral for MT. As most initial stroke imaging will be phase in forming effective acute stroke MT networks across the UK.
performed in non-neuroscience centres, this is where the largest expansion in provision
of acute stroke imaging will be needed. With the UK currently significantly below other Figure 12. CTA showing an atherosclerotic left cervical ICA occlusion (black
western European countries in terms of MT rates,3 increased use of appropriate advanced arrow) and intracranial left ICA occlusion (white arrow).
imaging to identify patients with LAO stroke swiftly is a key step in improving uptake of
this highly effective treatment.
Non-contrast CT allows exclusion of intracerebral haemorrhage
Imaging modalities in acute stroke and initial estimation of core infarct extent, displayed as regions
Broadly, imaging for acute stroke can be performed using CT or techniques. In the of low density caused by a shift in brain tissue water content
UK, CT is the basis of most emergency neuroimaging due to speed and ease of access, secondary to ischaemia. Core infarct of the territory can
and this lends itself well to stroke imaging, which is so time critical. Furthermore, use be estimated using the system, which divides the
of acute NCCT prior to is well established. Much of the information needed for MCA territory into 10 regions, covering the basal ganglionic and
MT triage can be extrapolated from NCCT combined with single-phase CTA, the latter supraganglionic levels (Figure 13). A normal scan is designated a
involving a CT scan of the head and neck after intravenous injection of a timed bolus score of 10, with one point subtracted for each area with features
of iodinated contrast medium to image the cervical and intracranial arteries (Figure 12). of infarct. Most MT trials excluded patients with ASPECTS <6, as
This imaging strategy formed the sole basis for MT selection in four of the landmark prior observational evidence suggested re-canalisation could be futile or could be harmful
published trials.5, 8, 9, 13 Together, NCCT and CTA allow identification of the site of in patients with low ASPECTS. Meta-analysis of trials suggests clear benefit for patients
intracranial occlusion, non-invasive assessment of the cervical vessels and any tandem with ASPECTS >5,16 but data for patients with low ASPECTS (0–5) are currently limited.
cervical arterial lesion, estimation of ischaemic core infarct, and, to a degree, collateral Criticisms of the ASPECTS system include moderate inter-rater variability,95 failure to
flow assessment plus cortical venous opacification, which is increasingly recognised as correlate with infarct volume and failure to take into account the functional significance
a marker of effective collateral flow. Combined NCCT/CTA therefore represents the of infarct location, but it is an established predictor of stroke outcome.
minimum baseline imaging required for effective diagnosis and triage of patients, and
Figure 13. Non-contrast CT ASPECTS. Scoring regions at ganglionic (left) and Figure 14. Dual-phase CTA. Axial MIP CTA showing right terminal ICA occlusion
supra-ganglionic levels (centre). Example case (right) showing low-density (left, arrow). Early arterial phase CTA (centre, showing relatively poor collateral
infarction in left caudate nucleus, lentiform nucleus and insular cortex outlined flow to the right hemisphere, arrows). Venous-phase CTA (right) showing
in black with an ASPECTS of 7. C, caudate nucleus; I, insular cortex; IC, internal capsule; delayed collateral filling of the pial network over the right hemisphere (arrows).
L, lentiform nucleus; M1–3, cortical regions at the ganglionic level; M4–6, cortical regions
at the supraganglionic level.
Although most radiology departments routinely provide NCCT, CTA is variably provided Routine use of CTP imaging in patients presenting early is more controversial, and expert
but is of great practical use, including in ‘grey-area’ IVT decision-making. As a result opinion remains divided. This technique allows discrimination of the non-salvageable core
of more routine use of CTA the number of patients identified as eligible for MT (and infarct from salvageable penumbra, with the aim of identifying a ‘mismatch’ between
possibly IVT) will increase. Multiphase CTA is an additional tool that involves second and/or the extent of each based on dynamic measurement of iodine contrast density as it passes
third CT acquisition after initial CTA. Use of this technique was commonplace in the through the brain tissue (Figure 15). Computed tomography perfusion requires additional
North American-led MT trials.10, 12 It allows dynamic assessment of the collateral flow imaging and contrast injection plus image post-processing using semi-automated or fully
and may improve outcome prediction over single-phase CTA.96 This technique is useful in automated software. Image acquisition is often relatively simple using modern systems
cases where the single-phase examination is performed relatively early following contrast but would require some additional training for radiographers (perhaps through a short
medium injection or in patients with reduced cardiac output. In both scenarios, there elective period in a neuroscience department). Computed tomography perfusion was
may well be underestimation of collateral flow on a single-phase examination (Figure 14). used as part of imaging selection in several s6, 11, 12 in which clinical results were
Multiphase CTA is an option in radiology departments with an established CTA service. superior relative to other trials that treated patients within 6 hours based on CT/CTA
Although there is more complexity in image acquisition and interpretation, it becomes a alone. However, with more extensive patient selection comes the danger of denying
relatively straightforward examination to deliver once there is departmental experience. treatment to a group of patients who do not meet imaging criteria but may still benefit
An alternative option to aid interpretation is remote specialist neuroradiologist assessment from the therapy. Indeed, post-hoc analysis of the trial suggests that this is
of the imaging, perhaps if this modality is implemented across a network. often the case. 54
Figure 15. CTP. Axial CTA (left) showing left M1 MCA occlusion (arrow) and good those used in published trials, e.g. RAPID10, 11, 14, 15 or MIStar97) to provide the local clinical
collateral flow. CTP maps of cerebral blood flow (centre left) and cerebral blood team with a technical report as a basis for discussion with the neurointerventional centre
volume (centre right) approximating to maps of a large penumbra (arrows) would be a pragmatic way of breaking down barriers to adopting CTP for a proportion
and no clear infarct core, respectively. Post-MT CT (right, arrow) showing small of acute stroke patients who would require it. Adoption of CTP in PSCs, particularly to
insular infarct only. improve selection in late-presenting and wake-up strokes, represents a second phase in
the evolution of stroke imaging in the UK.
Magnetic resonance imaging offers another option in acute stroke: can be used to
identify sites of arterial occlusion, and specific sequences such as and imaging
are very sensitive in determining the extent of early core infarction. Perfusion techniques
allow identification of the extent of ischaemic but salvageable brain (‘penumbra’). In other
countries, particularly France, MRI is used for a much higher proportion of acute stroke
imaging. However, access to acute MRI in UK hospitals is limited. Magnetic resonance
imaging scanners are commonly not situated close to s, and MRI departments are most
frequently configured as an outpatient imaging facility, with variable access for acute or
Computed tomography perfusion formed the basis for imaging selection in the -3 out-of-hours cases. In our practice, MRI is most useful as an occasional decision-making
and trials, which investigated MT treatment of patients beyond 6 hours up tool, particularly in cases of basilar artery occlusion that present at later timeframes to
to 16 and 24 hours, respectively.14, 15 Following the results of these trials, there will be assess the extent of core infarction in the posterior circulation. Although it is possible
increasing demand for use of CTP in wake-up stroke or late-presenting patients. As CTP to prognosticate with CTA-based scoring systems,98 directly imaging the brainstem is
will not be available in many hospitals receiving these patients, a decision on transfer not easy using CT, and MRI may be superior in this situation. Yet, in addition to the
to neurointerventional centres will most commonly have to be made on the basis of factors described, the practicalities of routinely scanning acutely unwell patients with MRI
NCCT and CTA (often with CTP being undertaken in the MT centre on arrival). In cases (which can be more time consuming and subject to degradation by motion artefact in
of favourable collateral flow and limited core infarction, this may be a straightforward restless patients), coupled with the difficulties in accessing acute MRI in the UK, will limit
decision, but for more borderline cases, CTP performed in PSCs to allow decision-making widespread adoption of MRI for the foreseeable future.
prior to consideration of transfer would be very useful and may be considered mandatory
for patients in the 12–24-hour window. Imaging networks could allow remote specialist Implementation of routine computed tomography angiography
neuroradiological interpretation. Barriers and solutions to more widespread, routine and timely use of CTA at both
departmental and individual levels involve image acquisition, image interpretation and
Computed tomography perfusion is useful in a number of scenarios: confirming suspicion image transfer.
of very early widespread core infarction, identifying salvageable penumbra despite a large
core infarct, and determining the extent of ischaemia in patients with a mild clinical Computed tomography angiography requires connection to a contrast-medium pump
syndrome but proximal occlusion. Most neurointerventional centres have CTP capability and acquisition of a second localiser before image acquisition; however, image acquisition
and variably use this tool depending on local preference, but radiology expertise may takes seconds on modern CT systems, and pre-hospital alerts can minimise delay, allowing
be limited in non-neuroscience centres. Use of validated automated software (such as contrast-medium pumps to be loaded before patients arrive.
A number of studies have demonstrated no significant delay in delivery of IVT if CTA of services in referring hospitals. Indeed, such initiatives are already occurring ad hoc at
is acquired,99, 100 as the alteplase bolus can be administered prior to CTA acquisition, a local level in the UK.
although this can still result in delay to the subsequent 90% infusion (future use of bolus-
only tenecteplase for IVT might eliminate that issue). If CTA is not performed at or close to Although NCCT is seen as a general investigation, there is often an assertion that CTA is a
the time of NCCT at presentation, delays in transferring patients from wards or EDs back specialist investigation, and many radiologists whose subspecialty interest lies in another
to radiology departments for CTA will significantly delay stroke onset to re-canalisation field may feel they lack competency in reporting these examinations without additional
times for MT. training. Short, intensive CTA training courses can significantly reduce discrepancies
among radiology trainees,105 and it is highly likely that this could be replicated for
Concerns regarding the risk of contrast-induced nephropathy are probably unfounded. consultant radiologists who regularly report acute imaging. However, some co-ordination
In two retrospective reviews of 175 and 224 patients,101, 102 the incidence of contrast and funding for such training is required. A longer term solution is the inclusion of stroke
nephropathy was 2.9% and 3%, respectively. In a subsequent observational cohort CTA interpretation in core radiology registrar training, with the potential for the same to
study, contrast agents did not seem to cause rates of renal injury above those normally be applied to stroke physicians.
encountered in this population.103 Another consideration is the increased radiation dose
incurred by additional acquisitions. The potential for significant benefit, as demonstrated Automated decision aid software to assess NCCT (for core infarct via ) and CTA
by trial evidence, will invariably outweigh the risk of radiation in a largely elderly patient for LAO to aid identification and speed up referral is already commercially available and
cohort. The risk to young patients is higher, but the potential for long-term morbidity could be a major aid to CT implementation. However, as yet, these tools have limited
through failing to identify and re-canalise a proximal intracranial LAO is also high in this independent validation and are costly at the individual hospital level. Higher level support
population, even in the case of pregnancy. As with all CT imaging decisions, a radiation for licensing use of advanced imaging software tools would be a significant facilitator to
risk-benefit decision needs to be made, but the balance is strongly in favour of the use of implementation.
advanced imaging in patients with potentially severely disabling stroke.
With more routine use of MT, local networks should be constructed with the aim of
Acute radiology services across the UK are stretched and under-resourced in terms of strengthening inter-hospital links and governance. Imaging is an important facet of this,
reporting capacity.104 Anecdotally, there are concerns that routine implementation and it is vital for local leads for neuroimaging to be involved in stroke networks. On a
of CTA for a large number of patients with acute neurological presentations would practical level, fast image transfer to the MT centre is needed to obtain an interventional
stretch resources further in terms of scanning and reporting time. The extra activity with neuroradiology opinion prior to transfer. This could involve access to web-based
implementation of more routine use of CTA should be linked to financial incentives for viewers or a standardised imaging cloud shared by all hospitals within a network.
the receiving hospitals in order to facilitate an enhanced stroke imaging service. Contributing to upkeep of these systems incurs a financial cost that may need to be
shared across NHS organisations but would have significant clinical advantages that
Implementation of advanced imaging should involve collaboration with industry to aid extend far beyond stroke.
standardisation of scan protocols. More widespread radiographer training will be needed,
which could be achieved by identifying a local lead to undertake a short elective period at As MT provision extends to 24/7 coverage, around-the-clock expert imaging interpretation
a neuroscience centre to learn and disseminate protocols, pearls and pitfalls. Alternatively, will be needed to facilitate clinical decision-making. A formal immediate CT/CTA report
staff from neuroscience centres with established services could visit and aid construction from a local radiology department is not necessary out of hours; indeed, many hospitals
use outsourced emergency radiology reporting with variable CTA expertise, and the and proximal occlusions can clearly be recognised. Similarly, coronal reconstruction can
number of radiologists with a neuroradiology interest in most hospitals is small. There are clearly demonstrate basilar artery occlusions (Figure 18).
a number of solutions for this, which will depend upon local preference and could even
be combined:
• Use of an interventional neuroradiology network as a first point of contact for MT Figure 16. NCCT (left) showing no clear
decision-making across multiple interventional neuroradiology centres has the hyperdensity of occluded left MCA
advantage of protecting rotas with smaller numbers of s from being overloaded (arrow). CTA (right) showing occluded
with out-of-hours calls but the disadvantage of the potential barrier of setting up IT left terminal ICA and M1 MCA (arrow).
systems across regions.
• Provision of acute CTA reporting by emergency outsourcing companies will require
radiology training and audit to ensure quality.
• In-house training of radiology registrars to flag LAO stroke to INRs may be preferable
in terms of financial cost but will require regular training and retraining. Over time, this
Figure 17. Axial 30-mm MIP CTA showing
has an added long-term benefit of disseminating the skill of CTA interpretation.
the MCA anatomy (left): terminal ICA
• Use of automated software to identify LAO stroke to local clinicians (e.g. RAPID or
(black arrow), M1 MCA (white arrow),
MIStar) incurs a financial cost, and potential barriers include uniform implementation
M2 MCA (grey arrows). Example case
across hospitals.
(right) of a left M1 MCA occlusion.
• CTA interpretation by stroke physicians will require training and networked support
similar to that seen for delivery of IVT in some regions.
The common denominator of most of these solutions is the need for training in NCCT/
CTA interpretation and, therefore, efforts should initially be directed at education. The Figure 18. Coronal CTA showing normal terminal basilar artery anatomy (left)
principles of this can be divided into two factors – identification of the site of occlusion and acute occlusion (right, arrow).
and assessment of the viability of the ischaemic territory – which form the basis for a
training curriculum.
Image interpretation
Site of occlusion and thrombus load
The hyperdense artery is a well-established sign of hyperacute stroke on NCCT but
might not be seen in up to 50% of acute MCA occlusions using standard 3-mm NCCT
section thickness (Figure 16).106, 107 More than 10% of patients with LAO show absence of
hyperdense thrombus, even using thin-section reconstructions, which are more sensitive
for detection.108 In contrast, CTA accurately demonstrates the site of occlusion
(Figure 17).109, 110 With a thick 30-mm slab orientated along the plane of the temporal
lobes, the entire middle cerebral circulation can often be demonstrated on a single image,
The caudal extent of CTA coverage should extend to the aortic arch to ensure that cervical A relatively simple imaging marker is a malignant collateral profile,120 where almost no
arterial steno-occlusive disease and aortic arch anatomy can be characterised – both collateral vessels are seen, which correlates well with a large core infarct (Figure 19).
important considerations for MT, aiding the INR in decision-making regarding route of
access, equipment choices, anaesthetic approach, and the need for adjunctive treatments It is becoming clearer that baseline CTA collaterals are a robust determinant of final clinical
such as carotid angioplasty or stenting (see Figure 12). In our experience, it is useful to outcome.121 Patients with poorer collaterals show less benefit from MT, and collateral
image the distal extent of the thrombus to guide treatment planning, but patients with status has potential to select patients at different intervals after onset; however, its utility
proximal occlusion should be considered for MT regardless of clot load. is dependent on the phase of imaging. Poor collateral status has been used to exclude
patients from clinical trials.10 Multiphase CTA improves prognostication.96
Core infarct estimation and collateral flow
In proximal LAO, collateral vessels preserve viable tissue and can potentially extend the The ability of collateral vessels to preserve tissue integrity could be guided by the filling
time window for re-canalisation. The extent of core infarct following arterial occlusion is of cortical veins. In a recent post-hoc analysis of MR CLEAN data,122 patients with acute
inversely related to collateral status and dependent on collateral flow,111 so infarct volume MCA stroke with absence of cortical vein opacification in the affected hemisphere seemed
at a specified time post-ictus can vary widely between patients.112 Core infarct volume at to have no benefit from MT, whereas patients with venous opacification did benefit.
presentation can help to predict outcomes: those patients with large core infarct volumes However, given the post-hoc nature of this analysis, cortical vein opacification cannot yet
>70 ml often fail to achieve independence at follow-up despite re-canalisation113 and may be recommended as a means of patient selection and requires further exploration as a
be at higher risk of reperfusion haemorrhage.114 Estimation of core infarct and collateral prognostic predictor.
flow can be gleaned from CTA interpretation.
Figure 19. Two patients with right M1 MCA occlusions but very different
Hypodensity on demonstrates regions of non-enhancement and represents a form collateral profiles. Collateral flow approximating to the normal left side (left)
of perfusion imaging. As with NCCT, ASPECTS can be estimated from CTA-SI. When and malignant collateral profile in the right hemisphere (right).
read from CTA-SI, ASPECTS shows better inter-reader agreement and is more accurate
in the early stages of infarction.115 Additionally, CTA-SI ASPECTS shows better correlation
with baseline stroke severity and infarct expansion.116 However, care should be taken in
interpretation, as very early-phase CTA may overestimate these changes, and this could
impact adversely on patient selection.117 A version of ASPECTS for the posterior circulation
using CTA-SI has also been devised.118
Collateral status can be estimated using thick 30-mm axial MIP images from CTA source
data. Numerous studies have shown that favourable collateral scores are associated with
favourable clinical outcomes, and, conversely, poor collaterals often coincide with poor
clinical outcomes.119 Various grading systems have been devised, but a simple, commonly
used system is a scale of 0–3, where 0 is assigned to no collateral filling, 1 to collateral
filling <50%, 2 to collateral filling >50% and <100%, and 3 to 100% collateral filling.119
Conclusion
Mechanical thrombectomy for stroke requires additional imaging for patient selection.
A combination of NCCT and CTA represents the most appropriate combination to
deliver this and is very likely to remain sufficient in early presenters. The relatively low
levels of MT in the UK are, in part, due to lack of routine use of CTA in stroke imaging
protocols in referring non-neuroscience centres. A number of solutions exist to aid better
implementation of the necessary imaging, but most are underpinned by the need for
resourcing and appropriate training in image interpretation so that patient selection for
MT can be reliably supported around the clock.
The role of multiphase CTA or CTP in addition to standard NCCT/CTA remains unclear in
early-presenting patients and requires further research. For late presenters and wake-up
stroke, if we accept that acute MRI is unlikely to provide the necessary imaging capacity
in the UK, either CT-based approach may be used up to 6–12 hours. Beyond 12 hours,
current evidence only supports CTP-based triage. In the longer term, implementation of
advanced imaging tools will be required in addition to NCCT/CTA.
6 Implementation of mechanical thrombectomy: lessons from implementation of primary
percutaneous coronary intervention for ST segment elevation myocardial infarction
Jim McLenachan
Key points
• Continuous data monitoring, of both process and outcome measures, is essential to demonstrate that treatment is benefitting patients and providing cost-effective care.
• All centres offering a new emergency interventional treatment should have a plan that ensures patients will be able to access this treatment on a 24/7/365 basis within a finite time
period (e.g. two years).
• Co-ordinated regional networks were critical to the successful implementation of reconfigured services for .
• Regular communications, and regular meetings, allow newer centres to move quickly up the learning curve and to adopt best practice.
Standard treatment for patients presenting with throughout the late 1980s and a feasibility study to determine whether PPCI was a practical treatment for STEMI patients in
early 1990s was . Three papers published in a single edition of the New England a UK NHS setting. Six major PPCI centres in England enrolled 2,245 patients between April
Journal of Medicine in 1993 suggested that immediate percutaneous balloon coronary 2005 and April 2006. The study was published in 2008,127 with many of the study’s findings
angioplasty (later renamed ‘primary percutaneous coronary intervention’) was a more used to inform subsequent implementation of PPCI to the rest of the country.
effective treatment than IVT – the standard of care at that time.123-125 By the mid 1990s,
small numbers of patients were being treated with PPCI, but the general assumption was The Department of Health and professional societies (BCS and ) provided strong
that the inherent delay in transferring patients to PPCI-capable hospitals, followed by support for implementation of PPCI as the new standard of care for STEMI.128 At the
the time to perform the procedure, would offset any potential benefit of PPCI for most time (around 2008), a strong network system comprising 29 cardiac networks in England
patients. Logistically, PPCI as the default treatment for STEMI was just too difficult. was under the leadership of NHS Improvement (an entirely separate organisation to
the current organisation called NHS Improvement). In general, each cardiac network
In 2003, an updated meta-analysis showed that immediate PPCI, when feasible, was comprised one or more tertiary cardiac centres and a number of s. A national clinical
superior to IVT in reducing mortality, reducing stroke, and, importantly, shortening lead and a national improvement lead were appointed to facilitate the implementation
hospital stay.126 The same year, the UK Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit conducted a over a three-year period.
review of national policy for treatment of heart attack, which recommended that the
Department of Health develop a clear policy for expanding PPCI and draw conclusions on Implementation by cardiac networks
the feasibility of national implementation of the service.127 Regional differences in population density and travel time to the nearest PPCI centre meant
that different regions of England needed to evolve different services. Implementation of
Clinical enthusiasm for PPCI, particularly in London, meant that some hospitals had started the PPCI strategy through the cardiac networks allowed for bespoke local solutions to the
offering the service in an ad-hoc way. Discussions between the Department of Health and the challenges raised by the implementation of PPCI.
resulted in the 'National Infarct Angioplasty Project’. This was not a randomised trial but
Networks were encouraged to be consistent in their implementation plans in a number of Implementation by geography or by hours of work?
areas (Box 1), but different networks in some areas took different approaches according With only one or two exceptions, networks started with a PPCI service that was limited
to their experience, resources and geography. either in time (8 am–5 pm or 8 am–8 pm) or in geography (immediate population first,
then implementation to cover surrounding DGHs). Each network was encouraged to
Who should make the diagnosis? have a phased implementation over a finite period of time (usually 1–2 years). For each
Some areas of the country had already invested in a system for telemetry of the from DGH, setting up the initial service involved extensive consultation and discussion with
the ambulance to the receiving hospital to support pre-hospital thrombolysis. Several local cardiologists, cath lab, , and rehabilitation staff and, most importantly, the
areas continued with ECG telemetry to support PPCI. In most areas, however, the PPCI ambulance service. Each time the catchment area was extended to include the population
centre agreed to accept paramedics’ interpretation of the ECG. from another DGH, this series of meetings was repeated. For the PPCI centre, extending
the catchment area was fairly straightforward and simply led to an increase in referrals.
Repatriation or not? The major challenge to the PPCI centre was moving from limited hours to a 24/7/365
A strategy of PPCI reduced the median hospital stay from 5–7 days to 3–4 days. In some service, with all of the consequent implications for rotas, shifts and daytime working.
hospitals, the patient remained in the PPCI centre for the duration of their inpatient For most cath lab staff, including cardiologists, in most PPCI centres, the full 24/7 service
stay. In other centres, the patient was transferred back to their local hospital after the meant that they were likely to be working during the night and unavailable for normal
procedure – often at 6 hours. This meant that a link was established between the patient work the following morning.
and their local hospital in terms of further investigation, secondary prevention and
initiation of cardiac rehabilitation. Contentious areas
A number of issues and discussion points occurred during the implementation.
Box 1. Areas in which consistent approaches to national implementation of PPCI
were recommended. Call-to-balloon time
• Diagnosis should be based on standard and widely accepted ECG criteria together with This is defined as the time, in minutes, from the point at which the patient, or their carer,
the clinical presentation. calls the ambulance service to the time when the occluded artery is identified and first
• Pre-hospital (ambulance) diagnosis with direct admission to the catheterisation instrumented, usually with a balloon or an aspiration catheter.
laboratory (‘cath lab’) was the preferred route of access. Travel through an ED at either
a DGH or the PPCI centre introduced significant delays that offset the benefit of the For both of the established treatments for STEMI – PPCI and IVT – the benefit of the
PPCI strategy. This had been clearly demonstrated during NIAP, in which transit through treatment is reduced by delays to treatment. The relationship between the loss of benefit
ED prolonged the call-to-balloon time by an average of 54 minutes compared with the and time is complex and differs for the two modes of treatment. It also varies according
patient being taken directly to the cath lab by the ambulance service. to the site of infarct and the time since onset of symptoms. In practice, it was necessary to
• The service had to be 24/7. It was recognised that this was not always possible establish an expected upper limit for the call-to-balloon time; if it was likely that PPCI could
immediately, but there should be a plan to gear up to 24/7 within a defined period. not be performed within that time period, IVT was offered as an alternative treatment.
• Time standards (call-to-balloon time and door-to-balloon time) were agreed, monitored The upper limit of the expected call-to-balloon time was chosen as 150 minutes. Some
and reported to the national database (MINAP). people felt that this was ‘pushing’ PPCI, because the had set an upper limit of 120 minutes;
however, their definition was from the time of 'first medical contact’ to balloon time.
As a compromise, an average of 30 minutes between calling the ambulance service and regardless of the time of day or the day of the week. Nevertheless, some networks
'first medical contact’ was felt to be reasonable, hence the 150-minute standard. evolved workable solutions. In the southwest of England, centres in Bath, Swindon
and Cheltenham provided daytime PPCI, while Bristol provided 24/7 PPCI to its local
Institutional activity population and out-of-hours PPCI to the surrounding areas. In the southeast, Eastbourne
Prior to implementation, guidance about levels of institutional activity and infrastructure and Hastings operated an alternate-week PPCI service. Although originally intended as
was produced by the BCIS and last updated in 2016.129 The guidance specified that: short-term compromises, these have, in reality, persisted ever since, with little apparent
• services must be 24/7 appetite on the part of the commissioners to pursue further rationalisation.
• services must have two adjacent cath labs
• services must do a minimum of 150 PPCI procedures per annum What went well?
• all PCI operators should participate in a PPCI rota Cardiac network support
• all operators should perform at least 20 PPCI procedures per annum. The cardiac network system, with overarching co-ordination by NHS Improvement and the
Department of Health, was critical to the successful implementation of PPCI. It allowed
However, in reality, the BCIS guidance, while laudable, was not enforced, and decisions clinicians, managers and commissioners to meet together under one roof to establish
regarding implementation were made without adhering strictly to these recommendations. patient pathways that focussed not only on making the diagnosis and delivering the initial
Many centres with anomalous low PPCI activity have continued unchanged ever since. interventional treatment but also on length of stay, repatriation, discharge planning and
rehabilitation. The network system also allowed individual networks to reach bespoke
Loss of local services solutions that were appropriate for their local geography and their local hospital and
One of the greatest hurdles in the implementation of a national 24/7 PPCI service was ambulance providers. This also ensured that pre-existing local skills and services were
the perception that local services were being removed. Cardiology had seen two decades recognised and used to best advantage. This included, in different areas, recognition
of decentralisation – diagnostic coronary angiography, pacemaker implantation and of the ECG interpretation skills of paramedic personnel and the use of ECG telemetry
coronary angioplasty had all started out as tertiary centre-only procedures but had all between the ambulance and the hospital. The result was that different networks had
moved out to the larger DGHs. The DGHs had invested in staff and equipment, often different implementation rates.
with local charitable and press support. Primary percutaneous coronary intervention was
sometimes then seen as recentralisation of clinical services, with the role of the local CCU Figure 20 shows the change from IVT to PPCI as the default treatment for STEMI in
being downgraded. It was important to explain that the PPCI strategy would save lives, England by quarter between 2008 and 2011. Of those patients receiving reperfusion
even if the treatment was delivered later than the time at which local IVT could have been therapy, only 39% received PPCI during the second quarter of 2008. By the first quarter
given. of 2011, this had risen to just over 90% (equivalent to 16,500 patients per annum)
(MINAP data, personal communication). The graph gives the impression of a steady and
24/7 service orderly change in treatment; however, this was achieved in different ways in different
A number of hospitals with a growing PPCI service wished to provide a limited-hours networks. East Midlands, which had more than one PPCI centre, achieved the change in
PPCI service (anything from 9 am–5 pm to 8 am–8 pm Monday–Friday) but were unable stepwise fashion as the centres took on larger areas of the population. In contrast, the
to provide a 24/7 PPCI service. In general, this was not the preferred operating model; Kent cardiac network, which had a single PPCI centre at Ashford, effectively switched
the ambulance services, in particular, were keen that the referral pathway was the same from IVT to PPCI on 1 April 2010.
Figure 20. Change in treatment for STEMI in England by 2008–11 for those three additional smaller reports published by NHS Improvement between 2009 and 2012
patients receiving reperfusion therapy (3-monthly datapoints) (MINAP data, all probably helped to galvanise doctors, managers and commissioners into activity:130-132
personal communication). • A guide to implementing primary angioplasty
• National roll-out of primary PCI for patients with ST segment elevation myocardial
infarction: an interim report
• Growth of primary PCI for the treatment of heart attack patients in England 2008–
2011: the role of the cardiac networks.
75
During the implementation period from 2008 to 2012, sessions were held each year at the
PPCI
IVT
annual national meetings of both the BCS and the BCIS to provide frequent updates of
50 the PPCI implementation in the 29 cardiac networks. These were generally well received
and created and sustained a sense of urgency.
25 What we learned from implementation

Sustainability
Providing a 24/7 service is onerous. National staff shortages mean that the burden may be
felt even more by nursing, physiology and radiography staff than by medical staff. Clear
Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 guidance is needed about on-call hours and appropriate rest periods if staff are called in
2008 2009 2010 2011 during the night. It is likely that there will be consequences for daytime capacity.
Continuous data collection Sick patients with alternative diagnoses

Cardiology was fortunate that there was already a functioning system for national data Patients are sometimes referred along the PPCI pathway and found to have an alternative
collection that covered both myocardial infarction (MINAP) and PPCI (BCIS). A number diagnosis. This may be cardiac (aortic dissection or pericarditis) or non-cardiac (pneumonia
of fields were added to the PPCI database to allow identification of all PPCI procedures or sepsis). Clear pathways are essential so that these patients are transferred to an
and collection of data on time of onset of chest pain, call time, door time and balloon appropriate clinical area quickly and safely.
time. These data were then used to report on the performance of PPCI. However, hospital
episode statistics data for STEMI were unreliable due to coding inaccuracies, obliging Increasing numbers of referrals
commissioners to rely on MINAP and BCIS data. As the PPCI service has evolved, so the threshold for referral has fallen. Perhaps
understandably, EDs are less confident about diagnosing pericarditis or ‘high take-off’ on
Communications strategy the ECG without referring the patient for angiography. The number of PPCI procedures
A number of papers were published during the implementation phase. The most important has remained fairly constant over the past decade (at around 350–450 per million
of these was the Department of Health’s report, Treatment of heart attack national population), but the number of referrals into the pathway has risen. In some centres, the
guidance. Final report of the National Infarct Angioplasty Project (NIAP), in 2008.127 However, ratio of referrals to definite STEMI is approaching 2:1.
Unconscious patients
The number of patients who survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is increasing. In the
past, such patients, if still unconscious, would be admitted to the of their nearest
hospital. However, these patients are often now referred along the PPCI pathway and
taken to the regional PPCI centre. If they survive but remain unconscious, they will require
either admission to the ITU of the PPCI centre or paramedic transfer – still ventilated
and with an anaesthetist or intensivist – to their local hospital’s ITU. This patient cohort
has been an unanticipated consequence of highly successful out-of-hospital resuscitation
and the evolution of the PPCI service; it provides an enormous challenge to intensive
treatment services, with consequent effects on major surgical specialties that require ITU
beds for elective work.
Conclusion
Between 2008 and 2011, the default treatment for patients presenting with STEMI
changed from IVT to PPCI. In the second quarter of 2008, just 39% of patients were
treated with PPCI, and this had risen to 90% by the first quarter of 2011. This was
achieved through the cardiac network structure, supported by substantial centrally
funded investment from NHS Improvement and the Department of Health. Some of
the issues, such as providing a 24/7 service and the referral criteria, were universally
accepted; other aspects of the service, such as whether or not patients were immediately
repatriated to their local hospital, were decided locally. Collection of data on numbers
of patients treated with PPCI, numbers of patients given IVT, process measures such as
call-to-balloon times and door-to-balloon times, and the annual publication of these
data have been essential to driving continuous service improvement. Critically, successful
implementation of PPCI depended heavily on strong national policy leadership provided
by the then National Clinical Director (Sir Roger Boyle) and his deputy (Professor Huon
Gray) together with a well-established system of cardiac networks. In recent years, with
reduced resources in the networks and reduced direct access to political leaders for the
National Clinical Director, the pace of quality improvement has slackened and residual
issues in some areas have been left unresolved. It remains to be seen if, without a similar
degree of policy direction and central resource in a reorganised NHS, a similar degree of
success can be achieved for stroke service reconfiguration.
7 Establishing a 24/7 interventional neuroradiology service to deliver hyperacute stroke
care: core elements of the project and lessons learned
Sanjeev Nayak
Key points
• Setting up a 24/7 service requires a change of institutional mindset.
• Many perceived barriers and issues with establishing the service can be overcome through collaborative working within a regional network.
• Co-ordination with ambulance services is essential, with agreement of a ‘critical code’ to expedite transfers from outlying referral centres.
• High-quality, post-MT procedure care is essential to achieve successful patient outcomes.
A 24/7 MT service was established at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Information from patients and clinicians on their experiences of using the new MT
Trust (now called University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust) in January 2010. This service and patient outcomes was regularly reviewed to ensure that feedback on patient
chapter describes how this service was established and some lessons that may be of use experience was included and that high standards of care were maintained. This regular
to other healthcare providers setting up a similar service. feedback was a key factor that facilitated early adoption of MT into routine practice.
Establish a multi-professional and patient project group Identify funding

A working group was formed from a range of healthcare professionals across the trust, The local provided full funding to the trust for this service in 2010, although the
including interventional neuroradiology, stroke, anaesthesia, intensive care and teams. service had started on a case-by-case basis in late 2009. This was due to the positive
The working group developed the case for MT and presented it to the trust’s clinical feedback received from patients and clinicians, coupled with early clinical successes. The
governance committee and the trust board for approval. CCG agreed to pay per procedure, with an approved coding and costing based on L712
tariff for complex percutaneous transluminal embolectomy of an artery: £10,258 at
The patient inclusion criteria and care pathways for the proposed service were defined the time. The funding allowed the MT treatment service for severe strokes to be offered
and agreed at an early stage, which allowed practical issues such as organising staff, on a 24/7 basis to local patients.
determining referral pathways to be mapped out, and potential problems to be resolved.
Integrating opinions and input from all working group participants was complex and Organise staff teams
required time and negotiation. The interventional neuroradiology service was delivered by a core that was available
24/7: , stroke consultant, radiographer, nurse (interventional vascular radiology),
Another important feature that contributed to the success of this project was the anaesthetist (major trauma rota), and (major trauma team).
development of patient partnerships. Patients were contacted by the healthcare teams
responsible for their care pathways and also via support groups to recruit them as ‘stroke
champions’, sitting in on project meetings and negotiations with commissioners.
Agreement for 24/7 service provision from involved teams was achieved through Anaesthetic procedure pathway
numerous meetings and personal discussion with anaesthetists, interventional radiology The anaesthetist completes a pre-operative assessment and takes handover from the ED
nurses and radiographers. The MT service had to be integrated into the vascular nurse/stroke team – or the paramedic team if the patient is arriving from an out-of-area
interventional radiology service for major trauma to achieve 24/7 anaesthetist and hospital. Patients are first seen in the ED before transfer to the interventional radiology
interventional radiology nurse support and into the major trauma service to achieve suite. The choice of anaesthetic depends on the individual case after discussion with the
comprehensive 24/7 funded cover and service, which was initially achieved through the anaesthetist, stroke team and INR, with 60% of patients receiving general anaesthesia
major trauma contract. Incentives such as hourly rate payment for call-outs, additional and the remainder conscious sedation. General anaesthesia is recommended for patients
programmed activity payments and flexible working in job plans were offered and agreed with agitation, reduced (≤12), nausea and vomiting, large dominant hemisphere
after discussions with teams. stroke or posterior circulation stroke. Rapid sequence intubation is used for all non-fasted
patients. Standard monitoring procedure includes , pulse oximetry, end-tidal and
Staff rota arterial – measured non-invasively every 3 minutes. The interventionist can provide
The level of staffing, shown in Box 2, required additional funding from the trust. access for BP measurements via the femoral sheath. Irrespective of the anaesthetic
technique, the goal is to minimise any time delay and maintain haemodynamic control,
Box 2. 24/7 multidisciplinary team care rota
with systolic BP between 140 and 180 mmHg. Patients undergoing MT often also require
• Eight band 6 nurses trained in initial assessment for thrombolysis as well as recruitment urinary catheterisation, active warming, and fluid balance care to prevent fluid overload.
for research studies. Each nurse works on a day shift (7.30 am–8.00 pm) or night shift
(8 pm–7.30 am) After MT, patients are observed for a short period in the anaesthetic recovery area before
• 1-in-6 MT local stroke physician rota being transferred to the . If any clinical instability is observed, the patient is instead
Additional stroke physicians are also available in the region, providing separate 24-hour transferred to the .
cover for five regional hospitals on a 1-in-12 rotational basis
• INR available to provide 24/7 MT cover and weekend aneurysm coiling on a 1-in-3 basis Interventional radiographer and nursing services
• A consultant neurological anaesthetist is available on call on a 1-in-7 basis (see Box 3) Box 4 shows the INR and nursing rota set up to ensure service continuity.
• Two anaesthetic ODPs from the trauma team also assist with MT on a 1:8 rota
• Team of radiographers and nurses from the vascular/general interventional and Diagnostic imaging
neurointerventional service provision are available (see Box 4) The imaging department at the hospital site delivering MT has three scanners and
• 30-bed stroke unit, including 12-bed HASU and ITU facilities four scanners. Advanced stroke imaging, including with core volume/penumbra
assessment or magnetic resonance core volume assessment, is undertaken in
Anaesthetic service selected patients: those outside the 6-hour symptom-to-presentation window and
A standard operating procedure was agreed for patients who were admitted following a patients with unknown onset time, low , high scores (>24), low GCS, or
stroke. Based on emergency theatre prioritisation codes, stroke patients were classified as poor collaterals on . The use of CTP has been routine since 2018 following publication
requiring ‘immediate transfer to theatre’. of the and -3 trials.
Anaesthetist rota
A rota was set up to ensure that an anaesthetist was available at all times (Box 3).
Ambulance service
Box 3. Anaesthetic rota
Early discussions were carried out with the West Midlands Ambulance Service in order to
• 8 am–7.45 pm Monday to Friday, one consultant neurological anaesthetist on site to agree protocols for patient transfer and repatriation, including introduction of a ‘critical
ensure care for all neurointerventional/MT patients code’ for patient transfer.
• Out-of-hours (7.45 pm–8 am on weekdays and all weekend), first port of call is the
consultant anaesthetist, who also co-ordinates the anaesthetic team. The consultant
Establish treatment pathway
anaesthetist is supported by the consultant neurological anaesthetist (1-in-7 rota), who
To optimise clinical benefits, it is critical to complete MT as soon as possible after the
is also responsible for covering neurological theatre emergencies
onset of stroke. To achieve this, patients are triaged in the ED and assessed by the stroke
• Consultant neuro-anaesthetists provide out-of-hours emergency cover in neurosurgery,
team to identify those who meet the clinical criteria for MT eligibility (NIHSS >5 and pre-
as well as the interventional neuroradiology/MT service
stroke mRS <3) prior to having imaging with NCCT/CTA.
Box 4. INR and nursing rota Box 5. Referral protocols
• Agreed protocols for regional DGHs developed through the heart and stroke network
• Theatre suites are staffed 8 am–6 pm, Monday to Friday, with a minimum of two
• Clear care pathways for referrals during working hours and out-of-hours
nurses, one healthcare assistant, two radiographers and one INR
• 'Drip-and-ship' service for patients, with nursing escort
• Out-of-hours, the on-call service comprises one nurse, one radiographer and one INR. After
• Out-of-area protocol established – e.g. for referrals from adjacent drip-and-ship sites
completing the daytime shift, staff remain on call from 6 pm until 8 am the next day
• The radiographers and nurses also cover the vascular and neurointerventional radiology
units and provide support to the nine-bed day unit
Organisation of the team and preparation
• The interventional vascular and neurointerventional service is supported by 10.8 WTE
Once the decision has been made to proceed to MT, the pathway below is followed to
radiographers and 20.5 WTE nurses (bands 5 and 6). Out-of-hours, radiographers work
ensure rapid organisation and preparation of the team:
on a 1:7 rota and nurses on a 1:12 rota
• The senior stroke clinician informs the INRs and discusses suitability for MT.
• An additional informal ‘back-up’ team of nurses and radiographers is available,
• Next of kin, where available, are asked to remain on site for consent/queries (or
if necessary, to cover MT cases if the first team is involved in another vascular or
telephone contact is established).
neurological emergency. If they are called in after 10 pm Monday–Thursday, they are
allocated compensatory rest the following day, when staffing allows • A senior stroke or ED clinician immediately contacts the anaesthetist and ODP via
switchboard using pagers.
• The INR informs the radiographer and scrub nurse of the procedure, and the
Establish regional care pathways
necessary equipment is set up.
Networks were set up to link each stroke unit with the regional neuroscience centre
• The stroke team informs the HASU to arrange a bed for the patient after MT.
in order to provide an emergency specialist review service for local brain imaging via
electronic links. Emergency transport networks (including repatriation) were also set up
for patients who require treatment. Referral protocols were devised to ensure appropriate
care (Box 5).
Regional thrombectomy protocol
Mechanical thrombectomy should allow reperfusion ideally within 6 hours of stroke onset
Confirmed acute stroke
or as appropriate based on CTP findings. In practice, most eligible patients arrive in the Previously fit and well (mRS 0–2)
neuroscience centre within 6 hours of the stroke. Those arriving late are considered for NIHSS >5
MT after assessment with CTP. Figure 21 shows the regional thrombectomy protocol for MT.
Do immediate CTA (arch to vertex)

Exit pathways
• Anterior circulation stroke
Repatriation to referring HASU - Severe disabling neurological deficit (NIHSS >5)
Within the first 24 hours after MT intervention, the stroke service co-ordinator identifies - Within 6 hours of onset of symptoms OR wake-up-stroke/unknown onset based on
the appropriate local HASU. The repatriation paperwork is completed, along with a CTP findings (treated up to 24 hours)
medical and nursing assessment regarding the patient’s suitability for transfer. Patients • Brain stem stroke
are repatriated to their local HASU within 24 hours of the decision to transfer – - Treatment can be delivered up to 24 hours from onset and occlusion of basilar artery
between 9 am and 5 pm, whenever possible, with a 7-day repatriation policy agreed with - Potentially eligible even if consciousness impaired and/or patient ventilated
all regional hospitals in the hub-and-spoke referral pathway. This means that they are
expected to have returned to their local HASU within 24 hours of the decision to transfer
them – and always within 72 hours. Discuss with stroke consultant on-call/INR (at the local hospital)
Patients deemed unsuitable for treatment or whose symptoms have resolved upon arrival
for MT are transferred back to the local HASU by ambulance without admission. The CTA findings that suggest need for intervention
patient must be medically stable, and a verbal and written handover is completed. • Intracranial ICA occlusion (including carotid T and L occlusions)
• M1 (trunk of the MCA) or M2 (MCA branch in Sylvian fissure) occlusion
Discharge from CSC to patient’s home • Vertebro-basilar occlusion
When possible, patients are discharged directly from the to their home or to their local
team. These patients are discharged with a personalised therapy and rehabilitation plan.
Stroke consultant/designated SpR at local hospital
to discuss with stroke consultant at CSC
Discharge from CSC to hospice/palliative care • Start standard-dose IVT if indicated and not already given
Patients requiring palliative care after MT with expected 3–4 weeks’ lifespan are • Arrange transfer via immediate (critical) transfer <8 minutes
discharged to their local hospice or one agreed upon with their carer or family. We • Neuroradiologist to liaise with neurointerventional theatre staff and anaesthetic team
have an arrangement with the palliative care team, who assesses the patient and makes • Patient should have venous access and urinary catheter prior to transfer
arrangements for a palliative care bed in their local hospice, as long as a bed is available. • Do head CT immediately after procedure and again between 22 and 36 hours
• Ensure patients are monitored according to the MT care pathway (local policy)
• All cases should be discussed in the stroke neuroradiology MDT
Figure 21. Regional thrombectomy protocol for patients requiring MT.
Follow up partner NHS organisations are able to access this via a secure, password-protected portal.
All local stroke patients are followed up as an outpatient at 6 weeks after discharge. For The audit data provided local evidence to confirm the benefits of MT in our patient series.
those undergoing MT, a 3-month follow-up clinic is arranged for local patients, while In addition, data about all of the patients who access the MT service are also entered into
out-of-region patients are followed up in their local stroke units, with /follow-up the database.
performed by telephone at 6 months. Box 6 shows current audit outcome measures.
Patient outcomes
Box 6. Key audit and outcome measures after MT
Between 2010 and 2018, we treated more than 500 patients with MT. An analysis
• Treatment-related mortality published in March 2016 by based on our data identified that functional
• 30-day post-treatment mortality independence, mortality rates, median hospital stay (for all patients who undergo MT),
• Disability at 6 months (mRS) and discharge to home were all substantially improved. In a patient cohort of 275 patients
• Disease-/procedure-related complications, such as sICH from a total catchment of 2.5 million, 23% were discharged home within one week.133
• Disease-associated complications (e.g. lower respiratory tract infections and urinary
The analysis also predicted an annual saving of £2.4 million as a result of reduced hospital
infections from SSNAP)
stays and savings from ongoing social care costs.133
• Time from onset to MT
• Time from onset to arrival at MT centre
The reperfusion rate ( ≥2b) was 84%, recovery was good (mRS ≤2) in 48% and mortality
• Time from arrival to arterial puncture
was 15% at 90 days, which is comparable to published s (Table 5).134 This has been
• Time from arterial puncture to MT
maintained, with near similar outcomes in the latest SSNAP annual review (2017–18).
Promote mechanical thrombectomy service pathways
Table 5. Improvements in patient outcomes following introduction of the MT
We used a website to raise awareness of the MT service, promote referral pathways, and
service.
share expertise and information with fellow healthcare professionals (e.g. www.stroke-
in-stoke.info). We developed innovative digital teaching methods with industry support.
SITS (IVT with
These online learning resources provide specialist training to help referring physicians UHNM (MT)
Outcome NIHSS 14–35)
interpret radiological images and identify patients with . Since the launch of the (n=106)
(n=14,145)
MT service, consultant stroke physician training has resulted in a 20–30% increase in Median time from onset to thrombolysis 2 hours, 21 minutes 2 hours, 45 minutes
the number of patients being referred to us for MT from regional hospitals. We also run mRS ≤2 4,951 (35%) 51 (48%)
annual regional ‘Stroke Alert’ courses for stroke doctors, anaesthetists, and ambulance
Mortality at 90 days 2,688 (19%) 16 (15%)
crews to develop the stable infrastructure necessary for the delivery of our regional service.
As a result of these initiatives, we have expanded our service from a local population of
The paper also compared our MT outcomes with those reported for patients of similar
666,000 people to a wider regional catchment of 2.5 million.
age and stroke severity in the register. Using a similar cut-off date, the age range of
22–76 years, and an NIHSS range of 14–35, we identified a subgroup of 14,145 patients
Evaluate patient outcomes
with a mean age of 64 years and a median baseline NIHSS of 18, matching our patient
Monitor and disseminate audit data
characteristics.134 The results of our patients treated with MT compared favourably with the
A database of stroke patients treated with MT was created to evaluate clinical
SITS population treated with alone, with a relative risk for a good outcome of 1.4.134
effectiveness and safety. We have integrated this database into our website, so other
Lessons learned The most successful outcome for stroke treatment depends on appropriate care being
In our experience, the two main problems with regard to implementation of a 24/7 MT given promptly after the onset of stroke. Further delays occur in hospital between the
service are the current shortage of INRs and fear that a sudden increase in the number time the patient arrives and the start of MT treatment. Some of these delays are related
of patients requiring MT will overwhelm the system. We believe that the latter fear is to slow hospital procedures and policies and delays in ambulance transfers. Care systems
unfounded. There should be buy-in from all involved teams and parties for the project thus need to be created to facilitate fast and efficient triage of patients with to centres
to be successful, and this requires passionate and motivated team members and leaders. capable of providing comprehensive medical, MT, surgical care and post-intervention
Involving physicians and other team members from our surrounding s and ambulance management. Such care systems can learn from those already used to manage major
personnel through our regional educational and social meetings helped boost activity, with trauma and .
a significant increase in our MT numbers. However, it is our experience that MT patient
numbers take time to grow. It took about three years for our MT service to be fully utilised Conclusion
and for the referral pathways to develop. As referral numbers built up gradually, this In 2010, our trust was the first in the UK to implement a commissioned 24/7 MT service and
allowed more interventional radiologists/neuroradiologists to be trained in the specialist since then we have treated more than 500 patients. This was achieved by redesigning our
skills necessary to deliver MT. The implementation of workflow streamlining improved acute stroke treatment pathways within the trust and across the region. Communication
care delivery times and reduced delays for patients eligible for MT. The application of has been key throughout this project, and it could not have worked without the co-operation
time-critical measures, including pre-hospital notification, rapid transfer from arrival at of many specialties. However, the real challenge for successful implementation of a MT
the ED to imaging in the CT scanner immediately followed by IVT, and mobilisation of service is to change current thinking and mindset at an institutional level.
the neurointervention team in parallel with the thrombolysis team, all contributed to
reductions in delays. There is a need to develop modern treatment suites where patient National delivery will require a similar change in mindset, together with reorganisation
assessment, CT scanners and cath lab are located in the same vicinity. of current stroke services in the UK, substantial investment in staffing and equipment,
refinement of care pathways, and extensive co-operation between ambulance services
A well-functioning and co-ordinated ambulance service is necessary to ensure that and hospitals.
patients are transferred rapidly to centres that provide MT. The agreement of a critical
code for inter-hospital transfer significantly reduces transfer time, and it may be necessary Additional contributors to this chapter
to engage air ambulance services to ensure rapid patient transfer from more remote areas. Dr Albin Augustine, Clinical Lead in Neuroanaesthesia, Royal Stoke University Hospital, Stoke
Mrs Caroline Burrows, Interventional Modality Team Leader and Radiographer, Royal Stoke
Ongoing issues to be resolved University Hospital, Stoke
The current tariff for MT only funds the procedure itself. At the time of writing, no
Mrs Maria Hall, Superintendent Radiographer Interventional/Neuro Radiology, Royal Stoke
central funding is available to support additional infrastructure such as new angiographic
University Hospital, Stoke
equipment, to provide more beds in ITU or HASU, or to employ the extra staff required
Dr Rohit Mittal, Consultant Neuroanaesthetist, Royal Stoke University Hospital, Stoke
to fully deliver MT services. We recommend that the Department of Health should take
action to provide additional, ring-fenced funding to support these necessary transition Dr Indira Natarajan, Consultant Stroke Physician and Clinical Director of Neurosciences, Royal
changes and costs. Stoke University Hospital, Stoke
8 Lessons from the implementation of intravenous thrombolysis for acute
ischaemic stroke
Gary Ford and Martin James
Key points
• Regional clinical networks provided clinical leadership and managerial support and were key to the development of local implementation plans and sharing best practice to
deliver .
• Working with ambulance services and teams was critical to improving recognition of stroke and expediting the emergency response.
• Protocol-driven access to urgent brain imaging was critical to reducing door-to-needle time for IVT.
• Development of teams to deliver around-the-clock IVT services required multiple specialties to support on-call rotas.
• Increasing public awareness and support from patient groups and charities was important in endorsing the service transformation necessary to deliver regional stroke services.
• In some large metropolitan areas, rates of IVT did not improve until services were centralised.
In 1995, the pivotal North American study reported that IVT with alteplase within Key factors that influenced intravenous thrombolysis use in the UK
3 hours of onset of ischaemic stroke improved outcomes, with a 12% absolute reduction In 2003, the European Medicines Agency gave a provisional licence for alteplase in
in disability 90 days following stroke.135 Although some UK sites had participated in ischaemic stroke, which was necessary before many physicians would even consider using
previous trials of streptokinase in , NHS services and the Department of Health IVT. The publication in 2004 of the combined individual meta-analysis of trials of alteplase
had no plan or strategy for the implementation of an acute stroke therapy requiring provided a greater understanding of the time-dependent benefits of treatment.136 A
immediate expert clinical review and CT brain scanning. Thrombolysis was a disruptive major factor that drove the reorganisation of acute stroke services was the 2005 National
innovation that was challenging to incorporate into existing care pathways for stroke. Audit Office report Reducing brain damage: faster access to better stroke care, which
Hence it generated a conservative reaction from some quarters on both sides of the was highly critical of the Department of Health’s approach to developing stroke services
Atlantic who were resistant to moving from a pathway where stroke patients admitted and its failure to support delivery of IVT in comparison to other countries.137 The report
to EDs were given a low priority for assessment and the consultant stroke input to many projected the health gains from a 10% rate of alteplase use, which at the time was
acute hospital stroke services comprised only two or three weekly ward rounds to a 24/7 regarded as unfeasibly ambitious. This report was followed by publication of the 2006
service capable of delivering IVT. Not until 2012, 17 years after the publication of the Department of Health report Mending hearts and brains, which set out the case for
NINDS trial, were all hospitals in England that received acute stroke patients delivering reorganisation of acute cardiac and stroke services into fewer centres that could deliver
IVT and 11% of all ischaemic stroke admissions receiving alteplase. This chapter reviews 24/7 for acute (see Chapter 6) and IVT for acute stroke.128 Although IVT rates
the lessons from that journey that might be relevant to achieving implementation of increased only slightly between 2006 and 2008 (Figure 22), this report led those hospitals
across the NHS more rapidly than was achieved with IVT. and clinicians who were not providing IVT to realise that acute stroke patients might in
the future be redirected to other hospitals.
These developments led to the launch and publication of an English stroke strategy in Figure 22. Percentage of all stroke patients who were thrombolysed between
2007, which set clear objectives and standards to improve care across the stroke pathway, 2004 and 2014 (data from National Sentinel Stroke Audit and the Stroke
followed by similar policy initiatives in the devolved UK nations.138 The 2007 strategy Improvement National Audit Project (SINAP)).139
was delivered through the creation of clinical stroke networks, using the existing clinical
cardiac network footprints. These networks covered populations of approximately 2 million 14
people and funded regional clinical leadership supported by managers, who convened
healthcare professionals and developed implementation plans to improve stroke 12
services in their region, with a particular emphasis on the implementation of IVT. The
networks benefited from a strong programme of public and patient engagement and the 10
involvement of the voluntary sector, often via the Stroke Association.

% of patients who 8
were thrombolysed
The developments between 2005 and 2008 laid the foundations for the future delivery of out of all strokes 6
IVT but saw only modest increases in treatment rates (see Figure 22).139
4
The factors associated with a major change in the trajectory of increase were the
2
favourable technology appraisal of alteplase in 2007, the introduction of a tariff for
alteplase, the National Stroke Strategy and the stroke awareness campaign. Many
0
clinicians used the absence of a NICE recommendation as a reason to defer making plans 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
to introduce alteplase – the phenomenon of ‘NICE blight’. The introduction of a stroke
tariff helped networks create stronger business cases for providing 24/7 stroke specialist
rotas and access to rapid CT imaging. The highly visible FAST campaign, with adverts Creating a professional learning community
on primetime TV and radio, increased public awareness of stroke and the importance In 1998, three centres in Glasgow and Newcastle introduced 24/7 IVT protocols and
of calling 999 in response to stroke symptoms and led to increased 999 call ambulance started to treat small numbers of patients (10–20 per year at each centre) within three
admissions and IVT treatment rates.140 Consistent with experience of other health hours, fitting the NINDS trial criteria. These centres contributed cases to the SITS database,
awareness campaigns, repeated campaigns were necessary to increase and maintain which collected real-world data on outcomes from IVT across Europe. In 2004, the UK
community awareness. Data on IVT use in individual centres across the country from the national SITS leads, with approval from the , established ‘thrombolysis training
National Sentinel Stroke Audit (and the in Scotland) and database reports days,’ which were free-to-access meetings supported by an educational grant from the
were valuable in incentivising low-performing hospitals to make changes. manufacturer of alteplase, with the content independent of industry. These were well
attended by physicians, radiology and nursing staff who wished to develop IVT and shared
Major barriers to hospitals developing 24/7 thrombolysis services were the creation of practical experience of how to deliver an IVT service. In the late 2000s, once IVT was
stroke specialist rotas, which required persuading and training consultants without a being provided in most hospitals, the meetings evolved into ‘thrombolysis masterclasses’,
major focus on acute stroke to participate in out-of-hours rotas and persuading and during which experience of managing challenging clinical cases was discussed. The stroke
supporting radiology departments to provide 24/7 access to urgent brain imaging. clinical networks played a major role in sharing experience across local regions.
Monitoring patient outcomes and higher volume units. Evidence also began to emerge of the positive association of
Because of opposition to IVT from some groups, and as a condition of the European institutional size and higher IVT treatment rates with more effective care pathways and
Medicines Agency’s 2003 provisional licence for alteplase, most centres treating patients rapid delivery of IVT.144 The most successful example of centralisation of stroke services
between 1998 and 2008 recorded patient demographics, processes of care, 3-month was the reconfiguration of London stroke services in 2010. Chapter 9 describes in more
clinical outcomes and complications in the European SITS database. This allowed detail the impact in London that occurred immediately after centralisation to eight s
comparison of performance between centres and countries and was key to showing and the impact in Greater Manchester on clinical quality and the large increase in rates of
that the results achieved in clinical trials were replicated in real-world practice.141 The IVT. This and similar service changes demonstrated the importance of establishing high-
National Sentinel Stroke Audit (covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland) provided volume ‘expert centres’ as a means of increasing IVT treatment rates across large cities.
more complete data on the number of patients treated but with less information on the
processes of care. Outside of major urban centres, centralisation of acute stroke services was not considered
practical or feasible, and telemedicine networks were established to create 24/7 cross-
Developing ambulance protocols to transport suspected organisational teams of stroke physicians able to staff a 24/7 rota, deliver IVT remotely,
read NCCT images and assess patients by video link. These networks were successfully able
stroke patients to centres able to deliver intravenous
to deliver IVT in hospitals where it was not feasible to provide 24/7 stroke specialist cover
thrombolysis
out of hours, with acceptable complications and mimic treatment rates.145 However,
In the 1990s, stroke patients were managed in a large number of hospitals that usually
such networks showed slower door-to-needle times compared with services using direct
treated small numbers of patients – often fewer than 300 patients per year, with some
assessment. Reading of NCCT images supported by remote telephone assessment was
centres managing fewer than 100 patients per year. At that time, no centre admitted more
also shown to be safe and feasible but, again, with slower door-to-needle times.146 This
than 1,000 stroke patients per year. In 1997, Newcastle introduced a rapid ambulance
indicates the potential role and limitations of remote decision-making support that might
protocol to redirect suspected acute stroke patients who were admitted to three hospitals
be used to help referring hospitals identify and transfer patients with for MT.
with acute medical services to a single centre and introduced the FAST assessment to
support paramedic identification of suspected stroke patients.142, 143 This early experience
showed paramedic redirection protocols were effective at recognising acute stroke
Planning services to manage stroke mimics
Many early clinical service plans modelled bed and staff requirements on the number of
patients and bypassing hospitals without 24/7 organised stroke teams to admit patients
confirmed strokes admitted to their hospital and failed to take account of the resources
early after stroke onset to hospitals capable of delivering IVT. These studies also showed
and pathways needed to also manage stroke mimics. As ambulance practice developed
that redirection could be achieved without overwhelming receiving stroke teams with
and the focus shifted to not missing suspected stroke patients, the proportion of mimics
large numbers of stroke mimics. Initial studies reported that 15–20% of suspected stroke
in 999-admitted strokes increased to more than 30%.147 Suspected stroke diagnoses by
patients had a stroke mimic at final diagnosis.
ED and non-stroke specialists also had high proportions of mimics,142 identifying the need
to have clear clinical pathways for stroke mimics to minimise unnecessary admission to
Centralisation of stroke services
HASU beds. This led to the development of the scale for use by ED physicians
As clinicians and managers considered how to develop sustainable 24/7 hyperacute
and nursing staff148 in an attempt to reduce the number of unnecessary assessments in
stroke services, it became clear that, in urban areas, consolidation of acute stroke services
EDs by stroke teams.
to fewer hospitals enabled the creation and funding of 24/7 stroke specialist teams
The importance of speed and simplifying imaging pathways One specialty alone could not deliver a national stroke service
When IVT was first introduced, many patients were treated close to the 3-hour time In the 1990s, there was much debate about which medical specialty should manage
window, with slow access to brain imaging and careful decision-making. Average door- acute stroke. Many neurologists considered that only they possessed the knowledge
to-needle times in UK centres in the mid 2000s exceeded an hour in most centres. As and skills to diagnose stroke accurately, while geriatricians provided most care to stroke
clinicians became aware of the benefits of treating patients earlier, and became more patients who required rehabilitation and were often participating in acute medical rotas,
confident in decision-making, the process of assessment of suspected stroke patients under which most patients with stroke were admitted. The clinicians who had developed
became an area of focus. In the 2000s, protocols for obtaining urgent brain NCCT out of acute stroke services and were early adopters of IVT had come from both geriatrics and
hours frequently mandated discussion with and agreement from the on-call radiologist neurology, with a small number from other specialties such as clinical pharmacology.
to perform the scan before a patient was transferred to radiology for a scan, followed The creation of stroke medicine as a medical subspecialty, with a defined curriculum
by imaging review and reporting by the radiologist. Most efficient IVT pathways now including skills from both neurology and geriatrics, was a key development in delivering
use pre-protocol-driven, nurse-requested imaging, a checklist of eligibility for and the necessary workforce and attracting trainees from a range of medical specialties able
contraindications to IVT, and image interpretation by the consultant stroke specialist for to deliver high-quality acute stroke care and deliver IVT.
decision-making. The adoption of such practices resulted in a steady downward trend
in door-to-needle times in the early years after European approval (Figure 23). Initially, Figure 23. Median door-to-needle times in UK and globally.
delays in accessing immediate NCCT imaging meant UK door-to-needle times were on Median door-to-needle time in UK vs Global
average 10 minutes slower than other European stroke services but eventually UK services Minutes
developed quicker door-to-needle times. 90
International experience has shown that with well-organised systems of care, very short 80
door-to-needle times can be achieved without impairing quality of clinical assessment
and decision-making. Helsinki is an international exemplar, with door-to-needle times 70
UK
of less than 20 minutes using a 12-step model that has been implemented in other
centres in different healthcare systems.149 The Royal Melbourne Hospital reduced in-hours 60 Global
average door-to-needle times from 43 minutes to 25 minutes after introducing three
key components of the Helsinki model: ambulance pre-notification with patient details 50
alerting the stroke team to meet the patient on arrival; transfer of patients directly from
triage onto the CT table on the ambulance stretcher; and delivery of alteplase in the CT 40
room immediately after imaging.150 Pre-notification of suspected stroke admissions by
30
ambulance services to stroke teams has consistently been shown to be associated with
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
more rapid treatment.
Services delivering MT will need to examine similarly the care pathway and use quality
improvement approaches to minimise door-to-groin times. A further complexity with the
delivery of MT is the need to develop rapid processes for secondary hospital transfers,
which is discussed in Chapter 4.
Similar challenges face regional stroke networks and s in reporting imaging
and developing sustainable 24/7 interventionist teams able to perform MT. There are
insufficient s to provide 24/7 services across the 24 English neuroscience centres
commissioned to deliver MT and to interpret all CTA imaging undertaken in referring
hospitals. As was the case for NCCT imaging and delivery of IVT, stroke specialists in
spoke-referring hospitals will need to develop skills to interpret CTA to identify LAO and
organise transfer to the CSC. Artificial intelligence developments in CTA analysis may
assist physicians in this decision-making process (see Chapter 5).
Training of individuals from other interventional specialties to deliver MT will be necessary

to provide sustainable teams of 5–6 operators. NHS England has recently introduced
funding to support experienced centres train interventional radiologists to deliver MT.151
Conclusion
The implementation of IVT for stroke faced many challenges and was met with
opposition by different groups for many years because of the need for radical changes
in the way stroke care was provided and the support required from radiology. Although
the evidence base for MT is much clearer than was the case after the early trials of
IVT, the clinical teams and imaging support required are much more complex, and a
number of professional groups oppose implementation of the service changes necessary
to deliver MT, albeit less vocally than was the case for IVT. Valuable lessons can be drawn
from the experience of implementing IVT to inform the future planning and delivery of
MT services across the UK. These include breaking down professional barriers; training
stroke specialists to interpret CTA imaging to make treatment and inter-hospital transfer
decisions and remove delays in requiring radiologist interpretation; monitoring outcomes
and complications over a long period and comparison with European centres; working
with ambulance and ED teams; increasing public awareness and engaging patients in
service transformation plans; and creating multi-professional networks at a regional level.
9 Planning and implementing major system change in acute stroke services: lessons from
London and Greater Manchester
Angus Ramsay, Stephen Morris and Naomi Fulop
Key points
• Service models should be designed so that all stroke patients have access to timely evidence-based care.
• Local change leaders should have sufficient authority to ensure all relevant stakeholders engage throughout the planning process.
• Meaningful clinical standards linked to financial incentives, including capital investment and additional transition funding, can help ensure services have sufficient capacity to
deliver care.
• Sufficient operational capacity, e.g. from networks, can help facilitate timely implementation of change.
• A clear evaluation plan can help determine whether the planned objectives are achieved.
This chapter describes learning from the implementation of the centralisation of acute In 2007, the National Stroke Strategy recommended improvements across the whole
stroke services conducted in two large metropolitan areas in England: London (population stroke care pathway – from prevention through to long-term rehabilitation.138 A key
8.2 million) and Greater Manchester (2.7 million),152 drawing out some reflections on how recommendation of the national strategy was that acute stroke care should, where
this might inform the approach to delivery of across England, which will require appropriate, be centralised into a reduced number of services.138 The recommendations
collaboration across stroke services within a region served by a centre delivering MT. noted evidence demonstrating how centralisations could be achieved, including
prioritisation of organised stroke care,128, 137 rapid identification and transfer to stroke units
Although evidence exists on the impact of centralising acute stroke services on delivery of by ambulance,137, 165 and potential contribution of ‘hub-and-spoke’ networks of stroke
evidence-based care and patient outcomes,153-161 little is known about how centralisation services.128, 138 However, there was limited evidence on the impact of centralising acute
of stroke services is led and implemented. Exceptions include research on implementing stroke services at scale and on how such major system changes should be implemented.
change in Ontario162 and Denmark153 and running integrated stroke systems in the USA.163
We discuss how key factors identified in this other work applies. The changes: centralisation in London and Greater
Manchester
Background: the drivers for centralisation The centralisations are summarised in Table 6. Before reconfiguration, patients with
The centralisations implemented in London and Greater Manchester’s stroke services in suspected stroke in both areas were taken to the nearest hospital with an and then
2010 were driven by a potent combination of compelling evidence and policy ambition. admitted to a specialist stroke unit or general medical ward, with significant variation
The National Sentinel Stroke Audit for 2006 provided evidence of substantial variations in quality of care. In 2010, both London and Greater Manchester implemented ‘hub-
in care, with many hospital stroke services performing less well than they had in 2004.164 and-spoke’ models, with a small number of s providing acute stroke care over the
There was a lack of 24/7 delivery of care, meaning only people presenting to certain first hours following stroke, transferring stable patients to units providing ongoing acute
hospitals within certain hours were receiving the right care at the right time – a ‘postcode rehabilitation care.166
lottery’. There was, in particular, recognition of the need to improve access to , which
in 2006 was provided to less than 1% of ischaemic stroke patients.164
In London (Table 6), eight 24/7 HASUs were created, offering rapid access to imaging, 1A. Both areas before – ‘local, but variable care’ Suspected stroke
specialist assessments, and treatment with IVT if appropriate. All suspected stroke patients Services admitting stroke patients:
within 48 hours of onset were eligible for treatment in a HASU, and HASUs were located • Greater Manchester: 12
• London: 30 Stroke unit/ward
such that all patients in London were within a 30-minute ‘blue-light’ ambulance journey. Greater Manchester (x12)
London (x30)
Once stable, patients were discharged to the community or transferred to one of 24 SUs Accessing services:
• All patients taken to nearest hospital with SU
providing acute rehabilitation closer to home. Through the changes, five hospital acute
• Transferred to community once stable Community
stroke services were decommissioned.166 • Variable access to evidence-based care rehabilitation services
• Little/no 24/7 access to thrombolysis
In Greater Manchester (Table 6), three HASUs were created (one operating 24/7 and two 1B. London (implemented 2010) – ‘radical centralisation’ Suspected stroke
operating ‘in hours’, with ‘out-of-hours’ patients being transferred to the 24/7 HASU). • Eight HASUs
• 24 SUs (providing acute specialist stroke rehabilitation)
The original plan had been for all patients to be transferred to a HASU, but, following • Five services were decommissioned 8 HASUs (24/7)
resistance from local providers, a ‘partial’ centralisation was implemented: only stroke
patients arriving at hospital within 4 hours of symptom onset and thereby potential Accessing services:
24 SUs
• All stroke patients were eligible for treatment in a HASU
candidates for IVT were eligible for treatment in a HASU. Therefore all services – three • All HASUs admitted suspected stroke patients 24/7
HASUs and 11 s – still treated acute stroke patients, and no hospitals lost their stroke • This model remained for the duration of our study Community
services.166 rehabilitation services
Following a review that showed this system had not delivered the anticipated benefits, 1C. Greater Manchester ‘A’ (implemented 2010) – ‘partial Suspected stroke
centralisation’
Greater Manchester further centralised acute stroke services in 2015 (Table 6). Through • One 24/7 HASU; two HASUs admitting in-hours ≤4 hrs >4 hrs
this, all suspected stroke patients were eligible for treatment in a HASU (in line with • 11 DSCs provided post-4-hour care and ongoing acute
rehabilitation services
London), and the in-hours HASUs extended to a 7-day service, receiving patients between 1x 24/7 HASU 11
• No services were decommissioned. 2 IH HASUs DSCs
7 am and 11 pm.167
Accessing services:
• Only stroke patients presenting within 4 hours of developing
The impact of the changes stroke symptoms were transferred to a HASU Community
Figure 24 summarises the impacts of the service models implemented in London and • In-hours HASUs admitted 7am–7pm, Monday–Friday rehabilitation services
Greater Manchester. The London centralisation resulted in significant reductions in

1D. Greater Manchester ‘B’ (implemented 2015) – ‘further Suspected stroke
patient mortality and length of hospital stay over and above those seen in the rest of centralisation’:
England (with an estimated 96 additional deaths prevented per year)160 and significantly • All stroke patients eligible for treatment in CSC/PSC (in line
with the London model) 1x 24/7 HASU
higher likelihood of delivering evidence-based clinical interventions than elsewhere;159 2 IH HASUs (extended)
• In-hours HASUs extended hours to 7am–11pm, 7 days per
the changes were cost-effective through their impact on outcomes.168 Follow-up analysis week
demonstrated that London’s greater impact on care and outcomes compared to the rest • These changes brought Greater Manchester’s service model
10 DSCs
closer in line with the London model
of England was sustained through to 2016.161, 167
Community
Table 6. Pre- and post-reconfiguration models in London rehabilitation services
and Greater Manchester. Adapted from Fulop et al (2019).167
Figure 24. Summary of findings in relation to framework for major system In terms of patient experience, qualitative research suggested that patients and carers
change. Figure adapted from Fulop et al (2019).167 had positive experiences of centralised stroke care: although patients had concerns about
not going to their nearest hospital, they prioritised high-quality care over shorter travel
Decision to • London: Led by regional authority; ‘holding the line’, e.g on model
change
• GMA: Led by network; ‘consensus’ approach times. Patients indicated the importance of having clear information at every stage of care.169
• GMB: Led by commissioners; ‘holding the line’, e.g. on implementation approach
Decision on which • London: Simple, inclusive model

• GMA: More complex, less inclusive model
Planning the changes
model to implement • GMB: Less complex and more inclusive than GMA; more in line with London At the time, the evidence on how to centralise acute stroke services was not strong, and
• London: ‘Big bang’ implementation; accreditation – standards linked to financial levers; hands-on facilitation
both areas saw much debate on how best to design a new system. There was resistance
Implementation
• GMA: Pilot, then phased; no accreditation or financial levers; platform to share learning
approach • GMB: 'Big bang' implementation; no accreditation or financial levers; hands-on facilitation, post-implementation
from local services, clinicians and the public, raising concerns about loss of services and
risks to patient safety through increased travel times.170
• London: HASUs provide interventions; 93% treated in HASU
Implementation
• GMA: HASUs provide interventions; DSCs vary; 39% treated in HASU
outcomes • GMB: HASUs provide interventions; 86% treated in HASU
The London changes were part of a wider programme to reorganise health services led by
Intervention Clinical • London: More likely than elsewhere overall the strategic health authority (a body with formal authority over local payer organisations
• GMA: No more likely than elsewhere overall (except HASUs)
outcomes interventions • GMB: More likely than elsewhere overall and in setting regionwide healthcare objectives). Programme leaders thus had ‘top-
• London: LOS = (1.2 days per patient); mortality = (96 lives per annum)
down’ regional authority and infrastructure to support high ‘bottom-up’ engagement
Clinical
• GMA: LOS = (2 days per patient); mortality = NSD
outcomes • GMB: LOS = (1.5 days per patient); mortality = in HASUs (68 lives per annum)
by local clinical leaders in planning the changes.170, 171 A wide range of stakeholders –
including (hospital and ambulance) providers, payers, politicians, and patient and public
• London: Cost =; QALYs =; NMB >0
Cost
• GMA: Cost = ; QALYs =; NMB >0 representatives – contributed to development of the service model. They were involved
effectiveness • GMB: Cost =; QALYs =; NMB <0
in programme oversight, designing new service standards and pathways, and developing
Patient and carer London and GMA:
• Good experience overall
financial arrangements. Such arrangements included an uplifted stroke tariff to cover
experience • Clear communication needed at each stage delivery of the new system, particularly acute and ambulance services (representing about
£20 million additional funding annually); in addition, £9 million capital costs were borne
Greater Manchester A had significantly reduced length of stay but no significant effect by local hospital services. Local hospitals applied to provide the new services and were
on patient mortality over and above the changes seen in the rest of England.160 Although selected based on their ability to deliver on service standards and geographic location
HASUs were more likely to deliver clinical interventions, only 39% of patients were (to ensure that patients were within 30 minutes of a HASU by ‘blue-light’ ambulance).170
treated in a HASU, resulting in Greater Manchester patients being no more likely to Two waves of formal consultation contributed to the London changes. The first of these
receive interventions than elsewhere.159 The changes were cost-effective, mainly due to established substantial public support for the creation of ‘about seven’ HASUs to serve
reduced costs through reduced length of stay.168 the London area. The second consultation focused on the shape of the service model
and which hospitals would host the new services. Each consultation was led by local
Following further centralisation, Greater Manchester B had significant reductions in commissioners and scrutinised by a committee representing all local authorities across
length of stay, a borderline significant reduction in mortality overall, and a significant London, helping to achieve pan-London engagement from both payers and politicians.170
reduction in mortality over and above the changes seen in the rest of England for the By combining ‘top-down’ regionwide authority with ‘bottom-up’ clinical leadership,
86% of Greater Manchester patients treated in HASUs; patients were also significantly system leaders of the changes were able to ‘hold the line’ when significant local resistance
more likely to receive clinical interventions than elsewhere.161 to change arose, e.g. in relation to the number, function and location of HASUs.
In Greater Manchester, the changes implemented in 2010 were led by the local stroke months, change leaders agreed (in line with feedback from ambulance services) that there
clinical network with endorsement from local commissioners, without involving the should be a single official launch date after which the referral pathway was applied to all
strategic health authority. This network’s approach was mainly ‘bottom up’, dependent suspected stroke admissions. This single launch date increased people’s clarity about the
on ongoing support from local stakeholders. Many stakeholders contributed, with local system and thus increased the likelihood of all patients being transferred appropriately.172
clinicians leading the design of new services and commissioners leading development Services had much to do to meet the new service standards (e.g. recruiting staff and
of financial arrangements. Instead of conducting formal consultation on the changes, developing new care protocols) by the launch date. The local stroke networks took a
planners engaged regularly with local clinicians and held consensus events. The new hands-on approach to facilitate change, providing service development advice, project
service model was approved by local commissioners and an advisory group combining management support, and central oversight that prioritised timely implementation. This
external experts and local representatives.170 As implementation began, some local combination of service model and implementation approaches probably increased the
services became concerned about risks to patients and loss of activity. Because the likelihood of patients receiving evidence-based care.172 In addition, many key aspects
network’s approach had been reliant on consensus, this threat to unanimity led to a of implementation – including standards linked to financial incentives, regular service
revised service model, introducing the ‘4-hour window’.170 A 12-month review in October reviews and clinical leadership – were identified as important to the ongoing sustainability
2011 recommended that further centralisation should be considered. While this prompted of the system;167 another factor was independent evidence of the impact of the London
new stakeholder consensus events in summer 2012, major obstacles to change emerged changes (e.g. national audit data and independent evaluation), which increased clinical
at this time, including the impending reform of the English NHS: this led to uncertainty and managerial support for the centralised system.167
and delays in agreeing further change.167 A new implementation board was convened in
2014: this regained a degree of systemwide leadership by drawing on local commissioner Greater Manchester’s more complex referral pathway resulted in reduced adherence.172
leadership, increasing engagement of local clinicians, and using evidence from national Although service standards were developed in Greater Manchester, services were not
audit and independent evaluation to make the case for further change. An independent accredited against them in order to launch. There was no linkage to financial incentives,
evaluation estimated that further centralisation would save 50 additional lives per year.161, 167 which may have led to greater variation across services.172 Compared to London’s launch
These changes were then implemented in 2015.167 on a single date, implementation in Greater Manchester was phased, with the system
changing repeatedly over a 15-month period. This caused uncertainty among hospital
Implementing the changes and ambulance staff about where potential stroke patients should be treated, both
How change was implemented also played an important role. Key factors included the during and after implementation.172 This combination of factors reduced the likelihood
models themselves, launch date, use of standards linked to financial incentives, and of patients being treated in a HASU (including many patients who were eligible for HASU
degree of hands-on facilitation.172 care), and delivery of evidence-based care varied more across the system. Taken together,
this helps explain why patients in Greater Manchester were less likely to receive evidence-
The London model was seen as clear and inclusive: it was more likely to be understood based care.172
and followed by hospital and ambulance staff, maximising the proportion of patients
who were treated in a HASU. The London HASU/SU services had to accredit against clear Greater Manchester B was simpler and more inclusive than its predecessor and was
clinical standards in order to launch, and delivery of standards was linked to an uplifted associated with a significant increase in the proportion of stroke patients being treated
tariff for stroke services. Clinicians and managers indicated that the financial incentive in a HASU In addition, change leaders learned from previous experiences, drawing on
and regular service reviews were an important lever to ensure ongoing prioritisation of service reviews to drive change, and they ‘held the line’ in insisting on there being a single
stroke by local senior management.172 While HASU/SUservices developed over several launch date. Finally, an operational delivery network became a key support in embedding
the new system post-implementation, facilitating regular audits and systemwide discussions To ensure selection of a suitable service model, local planners should combine systemwide,
needed to maintain effective system operation.167 ‘top-down’ authority with ‘bottom-up’ clinical leadership. This can help align multiple
stakeholders to overcome likely resistance to change. Use of top-down authority has also
Lessons from centralising acute stroke services in London been observed internationally, where regional politicians in Central Denmark stood firm
and Greater Manchester on their planned number of regional specialist stroke centres in the face of opposition
If MT is to be provided safely and effectively to stroke patients across the English NHS, from a local hospital that wished to host its own centre.153
regional acute stroke systems will need to be developed and reorganised so that units
have the necessary capacity to deliver MT 24/7 and so that all patients can access these Engaging relevant stakeholders across the system (including hospital and ambulance
units in a timely manner.70, 71 Delivering this will require major system change, similar in services, payers, patients, the public, and patient and public representatives) can support
complexity to the changes described in this chapter. Several important lessons for future systemwide ownership of proposed changes. The value of engagement is also identified
reconfigurations to deliver MT may be drawn from these experiences. in international experience of reorganising services in Ontario and providing integrated
stroke services in the USA (Florida, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and New York), which
Although this research extended understanding of the implementation and impact of describes how local champions (clinical or non-clinical) can facilitate widespread support
centralised stroke services, other forms of centralisation exist and may be relevant when for the system.163 In contrast, in Central Denmark, change leaders rejected engagement
planning service models for delivering MT. Examples include where ‘spoke’ services carry (e.g. with patient representatives, professional organisations, primary care, and municipal
out initial assessment and treatment of patients before transfer to a specialist centre, and level of governance), and this change saw an unexpectedly large increase in referrals and
full co-location of hyperacute care and acute rehabilitation. Furthermore, it should be lack of awareness of the new system outside hospital services.153
noted that London and Greater Manchester are large, urban areas; therefore, the degree
to which our findings can be applied to more rural contexts is limited. Collecting and sharing evidence (e.g. local reviews, national audit and independent
research) should be used to drive and sustain change. International experience reflects
We present clear evidence that models that prioritise delivery of an intervention that this, with local inspection and accreditation identified as supporting ongoing compliance
benefits only a small proportion of stroke patients (e.g. as Greater Manchester A did with and improvement.162, 163
its ‘thrombolysis window’) reduce the likelihood of systemwide improvement. Planners
should therefore ensure that optimising access to MT is not at the expense of other Clear specification – of both service model and implementation approach – may support
interventions that offer significant benefit to all stroke patients, especially access to better understanding and uptake of the new system. Use of quality standards linked to
organised stroke care/HASUs. financial incentives increases the likelihood of services delivering evidence-based care.
International experience also supports this, noting how regionwide pathway guidelines
Centralisation of the acute pathway – whether to increase access to HASUs or MT centres for services153, 162, 163 and implementation162 facilitated shared understanding of the system
– will result in increased travel times for many stroke patients, particularly in rural settings. among staff and across organisations.
We found that patients and carers are willing to travel for longer if the new system
delivers better care and outcomes. However, planners should engage actively with patient Although phased approaches are common in quality improvement activities, the
and public views on proposed changes to ensure that future models are considered experience presented here suggests that a single launch date for a new system offers
acceptable and do not disadvantage specific groups. clarity for hospital and ambulance staff. A phased approach was used when reorganising
Central Denmark’s stroke system, with gradual closure of beds over a 20-month period,
but the impact of this was not evaluated.153
Hands-on facilitation by networks – e.g. through on-site project management and central
oversight of timelines – provides the operational capacity and impetus to ensure timely
delivery of change. Independent evidence (through audit or evaluation) can help sustain a
model that seems to be working well or build a case for further change where necessary.
Finally, change is not a one-off: assessing the evidence and responding accordingly might
result in further change; internationally, the Ontario changes were used as a platform to
develop new research to generate new evidence,162 which was felt to be key to ongoing
development of the system.162
Funding declaration
This chapter draws on independent research commissioned by the National Institute for
Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research Programme, funded by the
Department of Health (study reference 10/1009/09). The views expressed are those of the
authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.
NJF is an NIHR Senior Investigator and SM and NJF were supported in part by the NIHR
Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) North Thames
at Barts Health NHS Trust.
10 Establishing a regional thrombectomy service
Don Sims
Key points
• Staff across the care pathway, including those who interpret s and assess patient suitability in referring centres, must be trained with the new skills to deliver .
• A clear idea of total costs and how many thrombectomies are required to deliver a financially sustainable service is crucial.
• Necessary infrastructure must be planned, including access to biplane neuroangiography equipment and sufficient capacity at the MT centre to manage patients
transferred from other hospitals.
• Engaging ambulance services with tools to identify possible s out of hospital and convey them directly to a ‘mothership’ may be crucial in future.
• Appropriate system governance is required to review outcomes and feedback results and timings to referrers to ensure the pathway is safe and efficient.
Mechanical thrombectomy is particularly challenging to deliver, because it is a specialised, with HASUs (nearly 150 in the UK), MT can currently be delivered only in a much more
time-critical intervention requiring a significant-sized team that must be available in a timely limited number of neuroscience centres with an on-site interventional neuroradiology
manner to maintain an effective service. In contrast to other stroke service developments, service (just 28 in the UK at the time of writing). This therefore requires assessment and
such as , MT is much more complex as it requires collaborative working across multiple rapid onward transfer of significant numbers of potentially unstable patients to MT centres.
HASUs and specialties, including interventional neuroradiology and anaesthesia, which
have until recently had little involvement in the management of . Neuroradiology staffing
Personnel costs make up most of the NHS budget, and staffing a service is the biggest
Many of those setting up a MT service will be familiar with starting an IVT service, so it challenge faced, because MT requires additional staff across a number of disciplines and
offers a good starting point for comparison. Office-hours IVT services were often started a skill mix that is already in short supply. It is difficult to exactly specify the additional
in trusts after the stroke specialist nurse and stroke consultant attended a single training staffing needed to establish or expand a MT service, because every hospital has different
day. Negotiation with radiology was needed to get scans performed immediately, and configurations of existing staff depending on the other specialties and services they offer.
staff on stroke wards required training in monitoring and managing complications after A hospital with a large neuroscience centre that already does significant volumes of
IVT. From this platform, services could be extended around the clock, often involving interventional work will have different needs to smaller centres, but nevertheless many
consultants who were not necessarily stroke specialists but were keen to support delivery similarities and parallels can be drawn.
of this innovative treatment.
For the procedure itself, the overwhelming majority of current centres and most future
Mechanical thrombectomy requires many more specialist staff to run often entirely new centres will need consultant s trained in the intervention. Although an initial office-
rotas out of hours, with the training for interventionists unfamiliar with the procedure hours service can be supported by three or four INRs, a sustainable 24/7 rota requires at
requiring years rather than days. Like thrombolysis, MT also has to be delivered as soon least six operators to ensure the service is resilient. Too many operators on a MT rota can
as possible to preserve as much brain parenchyma as possible, and the mantra of ‘time is also cause issues if the number of cases is insufficient for the staff to maintain the skills
brain’ remains crucial. An additional challenge is that while IVT is delivered in all hospitals
required. If a new MT service is set up in a non-neuroscience centre run by trained Patients require HASU care for at least 24 hours following the procedure. Some centres
interventionists from other specialties only doing MT for acute stroke, the level of activity have been successfully undertaking MT followed by immediate repatriation, bypassing
to maintain competence will need to be monitored. the need for stroke team and HASU involvement at the MT centre. However, we believe
that this model of care carries risks due to the lack of close involvement of a stroke
Depending on the number of existing INRs present in the centre, some would need an physician and team in the peri-procedural period.
additional two to four consultants. In addition, neurointerventional nurses are needed to
support the procedure, as is a radiographer trained in the use of biplane digital subtraction Stroke teams also have a potential peri-procedural role in cases where the MT is
angiography. Anaesthetic support is also needed to safely deliver MT; although most proceeding under only light sedation. A stroke team assessment of the patient’s clinical
patients do not require escalation to a general anaesthetic, it can be hard to determine status (by stroke specialist nurse or consultant) can help INRs to determine whether any
prior to the procedure those who will require this. Currently, our experience has been remaining vessel occlusion after a partial successful procedure is worth pursuing due to
that about 10–15% of patients have required a general anaesthetic, either initially or residual neurological deficit, potentially reducing the risk of the procedure continuing
during the procedure, and we have had a neuroanaesthetist and an available for all unnecessarily if the symptoms are sufficiently resolved. Our practice has been that
procedures. the decision to continue when the procedure starts to move towards an hour with no
improvement or when the total time passes the 6-hour window is made jointly between
The limited number of neuroanaesthetists is nearly as challenging as the shortage of INRs in the interventionist and stroke physician.
the UK. Other teams with whom we work confirm that the anaesthesia required for MT
is not particularly complex, so although services should be led by a neuroanaesthetist, the Post-procedure, a joint decision is again needed about the type and timing of antiplatelet
procedure itself could be delivered by a general anaesthetist. This still requires support therapy, as research trials in this area have yet to be done. A judgement is needed based
from an ODP, who are also in short supply in the UK. on how much instrumentation was required, whether lysis was given, and the patient’s
risk factor profile for bleeding complications.
The need for MT to be done in a timely manner means that staff cannot, for the most
part, be used for other services without jeopardising the timely delivery of MT. Our service Finally, although many patients have near full or significant improvement immediately
needed additional nurses and radiographers knowing that the frequency they would be after MT, a significant proportion do not. Some patients will still have the total anterior
called in would greatly increase but that they could stay on existing aneurysm coiling circulation stroke that was originally threatened, and a few will have symptomatic
rotas, which can usually be delayed for more urgent cases. However, as the anaesthetic haemorrhagic transformation or need subsequent decompressive hemicraniectomy,
team was already fully occupied undertaking other resident roles, we needed a completely necessitating neurosurgical involvement. As most MT is carried out in neuroscience
new rota specifically for MT and so the costs in our centre (Queen Elizabeth Hospital, centres with onsite neurosurgery, it seems counterintuitive to repatriate early, only for
Birmingham) were high, although this may not be the case elsewhere. the patient to need to return for hemicraniectomy. Our opinion therefore remains that, in
most cases, 24 hours post-procedure on our HASU to allow for repeat CT and check the
Stroke staffing potential need for other interventions is appropriate before repatriation to the referring
Procedures have to be in place to determine whether the patient is still suitable for MT HASU, even if this is a comparatively rare occurrence at around 1–2%.
on arrival and to ensure that appropriate acute care is started for a potentially unstable
group of patients after MT. The decision to proceed to MT is complex and should be made We have based our service on the expectation that about 4 hours of stroke consultant
jointly between a stroke physician and INR. time is needed per MT case. This includes initial discussion of the patient with the referrer
right through to the patient arriving on the HASU after their post-procedure CT, as well as All of these factors mean that the business case for MT, especially for an individual trust, is
the governance to maintain a safe service. In centres with a tier of middle-grade medical finely balanced and needs careful planning not just internally but also with neighbouring
staff, it may be that this can be reduced, but certainly in our centre, like many others, it trusts and specialised commissioning. It is not possible to generalise costs for individual
remains a consultant-delivered service from all involved specialties. centres because of the range of variables involved and the different starting points for each
centre. The economies of scale play an important role in finding the balance or break-even
Staffing an expanded HASU, with the additional trained nurses competent in post-MT point. Our internal calculations suggest a break-even point at about 250–300 MT cases
care, is also essential, as are the therapy requirements that go with HASU care. The at the current English tariff. This would change with different tariffs and would be more
additional bed capacity needed for any individual neuroscience centre that delivers MT is favourable if MT devices were ‘excluded’ from the tariff or if costs come down, either because
difficult to generalise. It depends particularly on two factors – the total number of MTs of competition between device providers or increased use of cheaper aspiration catheters.
being provided and especially how many are referrals external to the neuroscience centre
and the average length of stay at the MT centre. For our service to date, one additional Because MT will require new rotas of staff available at a moment’s notice, most costs are
HASU bed has been needed per 100 MTs undertaken annually. incurred upfront. In England, the income from MT is set by specialised commissioning
and is paid on a per-patient basis. This means that once the service is set up, we have
Financial implications estimated that about 75% of all eligible patients in our catchment need to be receiving
The delivery of successful MT offers a real potential for saving hospital bed-days in MT for the costs to be covered by the tariff. It is particularly important for individual
acute and community trusts. The total savings dwarf the cost of the intervention when trusts to calculate this correctly. Whatever clinicians feel about the market model, if you
the reductions in social care costs and informal care costs are also taken into account. get these calculations wrong for MT and rotas of staff are in place but the cases do not
However, from a single trust perspective, the finances are much more challenging and present (for whatever reason), unrecovered costs can amount to millions of pounds a
need to be considered before starting the service. An overall reduction in total acute year. As stated earlier, it is very difficult to make generalisable statements about costs and
hospital stay for a typical MT patient compared with an untreated similar case is very likely. bed-days, but we calculated that a HASU probably needs an extra bed per 100 externally
Our own internal audit suggests this may work out at an average of 3 days or more in referred MTs, but centres treating a much higher proportion of their own patients may be
reduced acute hospital stay per treated patient. Although this sounds promising, it is not able to save this by reducing their overall length of stay for stroke.
the complete story, because this is the saving on an individual neuroscience centre’s HASU
length of stay when you consider only the cohort that would normally have presented Finally, there was much discussion about how to introduce the service – either 24/7
to their front door. Most neuroscience centres serve a MT catchment area well in excess immediately or in stages. After a 9 am–5 pm start, centres may consider phased increases
of their local catchment and will be receiving many, if not most, patients from external in service hours. Again, individual circumstances and local staffing issues may dictate
HASUs. The savings will still be accrued in total length of stay, but the neuroscience centre the model, but, from a purely financial perspective, a model that was functional and
is now looking after patients on its HASU that it normally never would have seen, and, responsive 7 days a week until 8 pm or midnight was barely cheaper than a full 24/7
even with prompt repatriation on day one or two, these are all extra bed-days in the MT service, so we elected to move straight to the latter once staff were in post. Such a rapid
centre that need to be accommodated in any business case. transition may not be feasible for centres starting from a lower baseline for staffing.
The NHS overall and, most importantly, patients will undoubtedly benefit from a regional
MT service in terms of less disability and shorter lengths of stay, but individual neuroscience
centres must recognise that they may need significantly more HASU beds – with all the
associated staff – to deliver these savings.
Working with referrers With regard to repatriation, we are referring patients back to an HASU-level bed, so some
Ideally, all stroke patients would be conveyed by ambulance directly to a MT-capable medical instability should not be a barrier. We are also referring patients back to the team
centre, but this would require accurate recognition of patients with LAO by ambulance that initially referred them, who will likely have another MT-eligible patient to send soon,
paramedics, which is currently not feasible (see Chapter 4) and require substantial so co-operative working is encouraged. Unlike in the funding agreement with major
reconfiguration of our current service. Service modelling (see Chapter 3) suggests this trauma, the accepting stroke centre will (under current arrangements in England) receive
will not be sustainable. For the foreseeable future, therefore, patients will still have to a full stroke tariff despite not having the patient back until they are 1–2 days into their
be transferred urgently from HASU spokes to MT hubs, which need to be able to work pathway, having already received some costly interventions in the neuroscience centre.
effectively with referring hospitals in their region (Box 7).
Our experience to date suggests that clinical acceptance of a patient for repatriation is the
Box 7. Requirements for MT hubs working with referring hospitals easiest step, with physical location of a bed on the HASU usually the barrier to smooth
movement of patients. Other issues, such as patients refusing to return to a referring
• Clear and rapid pathways for referral
centre and difficulties accessing local services from a remote hospital, are rarely a
• Engagement with ambulance trusts
major issue, but do occur. Financial penalties for not taking a patient back who is ready
• Correct infrastructure for imaging transfer
are popular among some clinicians but in practice are difficult to facilitate in a system
• Clinical skills in all HASUs for caring for repatriated MT patients
where the MT tariff is given by specialised commissioning. Small financial penalties do
• Agreements on patients being transferred with thrombolysis with alteplase often still
not, of course, create beds.
running (unless tenecteplase becomes more widespread)
• Trained staff to support the unstable patients and any infusions during transfer
For a 24/7 service to function and flourish, prompt repatriation is vital and may prove to be
Agreed pathways should be in place for patients whose symptoms have resolved on the issue that grinds otherwise functioning services to a halt. If staffing a service remains
arrival or in whom MT is not felt to be indicated due to futility or other issues, although the biggest challenge to starting 24/7 services, repatriation is the biggest challenge to
in our experience this is infrequent in practice. keeping it running, and it needs to be explicitly addressed within regional networks from
the outset.
Regardless of the referral model, repatriation pathways and escalation policies need to
be firmly in place. The lessons from longstanding similar issues in neurosurgery and more Infrastructure
recently with major trauma centres need to be learnt if a MT centre is to avoid congestion. It is easy to concentrate on changes in the centre providing the service, but critical parts
of the pathway occur outside the MT centre. Many HASU centres across a region need
Neuroscience centres that take significant numbers of additional patients for MT must to change practice to allow them to identify all potentially eligible patients with LAO in
ensure that those new patients and also the 85% of patients that normally present to a timely manner. Sometimes the stroke decision-maker (for IVT and also now for MT) is
their front door but are not candidates for MT still have access to usual HASU-level stroke at home out of hours, and decision-making processes are reliant on non-specialists such
care. Delays in repatriation of referred MT patients, even by a day or two, have the as medical or registrars. Many centres in the UK have saved costs by exporting their
potential to quickly overwhelm a service, especially regarding stroke unit capacity and out-of-hours radiology reporting service to an external provider. These changes do not
therefore access. Care is needed to avoid the development of a two-tier service between provide a strong foundation to prompt decision-making based on clinical assessment and
those who receive MT and those who do not. accurate and timely / reports (and, in some cases, advanced brain imaging).
Expecting MT centres to accept all potential MT cases seems impractical given the difficulty
non-specialists (and sometimes specialists) have making a clear diagnosis of stroke, never
mind one with a likely LAO. All currently available pre-hospital LAO scales have significant
false-positive rates. For a hub-and-spoke model to work, some screening out of non-
stroke patients and stroke patients without LAO needs to occur. Our view, in discussion
with referring centres, is that the decision-maker (often a stroke physician) has to be
trained to a level where they can interpret a NCCT/CTA to determine if there is a LAO in
an ischaemic stroke patient. Otherwise MT centres risk being overwhelmed with mimics
and patients with non-LAO strokes. It is not feasible with current UK neuroradiology
consultant numbers for all CTAs obtained in referring HASUs to be immediately reported
and reviewed by neuroradiologists.
Conclusion
It is vital to ensure that appropriate staff across the care pathway are trained with the new
skills required to deliver MT, including the ability to interpret CTAs and assess suitability
of patients in referring centres. An appropriate governance structure is required to review
outcomes and to feed back the results and timings to referrers to ensure the pathway is
efficient. The tariff for MT is significant, but so are the start-up costs, most of which occur
prior to launch. A clear idea of total costs and how much activity is required to deliver a
financially sustainable service is crucial, which is very dependent on local circumstances.
Planning the necessary infrastructure is essential, including access to a biplane imaging
intervention suite and sufficient HASU capacity to manage patients transferred from
other hospitals.
11 Developing a business case for mechanical thrombectomy
Marcus Bradley and Carolyn Roper
Key points
• Define the clinical model before any modelling and development to give the programme a clear anchor from which to make assumptions and maintain a consistent thread
through all work.
• Engage key internal and external stakeholders early, including stroke team, interventional neuroradiology, anaesthesia and theatre services, local ambulance service, local stroke
network and IT services.
• Consolidate existing or ad-hoc service before considering expansion.
• Phase the development of the service as a manageable operational approach; accept that some assumptions about future phases will need to be revisited before the entire service
expansion to 24/7 is complete and use good governance and steering groups to oversee this.
• Brief key senior decision-makers as the business case is being developed and understand their requirements and any concerns before the business case enters the approval process.
Introduction During this period, the trust consolidated services on one site in a new hospital and
In 2016, NHS England began a commissioning process for the provision of to provided new facilities from which the acute stroke service could be run.
patients in England. This was in response to a series of clinical trials that demonstrated
conclusively that MT was both effective and safe for patients with due to a in The stroke network offered insight into future developments in the treatment of stroke,
the anterior circulation. The magnitude of this task is enormous given that this is a highly informing the design of the new hospital, which included two biplane angiography suites
specialised procedure performed by a small number of s working in teams based only suitable for neurointerventional procedures.
in neuroscience centres. To support such a service requires a fundamental restructuring of
regional stroke services and expansion of the trained workforce. North Bristol NHS Trust background
North Bristol NHS Trust had an established MT service that treated approximately 100
North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) hosts the regional adult neuroscience service and provides patients in 2018 and, before service development work started, provided a service that
MT for a population of 2.4 million in a largely rural setting across Gloucestershire, operated 9 am–4 pm Monday to Friday – the level of service that could be provided by
Wiltshire, Somerset and Bristol. Prior to NHS England initiating formal commissioning, the the neuroradiology and stroke workforce at that time. At that point, there had been no
stroke and interventional neuroradiology team at NBT had developed the ad-hoc capacity specific capacity investment in the MT service, and activity had been accommodated
to deliver MT for the patients in this region within the constraints of available resources. within existing resources.
This was possible because of a pre-existing stroke and cardiac network, which was tasked
with implementing the National Stroke Strategy in 2008 and increasing uptake of IVT. In April 2018, NHS England requested that neuroscience centres develop a plan for the
This provided a network of stroke physicians, a digital infrastructure for image sharing, delivery of a 24/7 stroke MT service. The NBT management team requested a clear service
and a regional clinical forum to examine the latest evidence, including the evolving field development plan and investment business case to support delivery of such a service over
of MT, and also provided the impetus to develop the service to date. the next five years.
A programme started that culminated in substantial agreed investment in the MT The function of the group was threefold:
service. In this chapter, we describe our experience in developing a business plan that • To support cross-divisional development and agreement of an investment business case
gave the trust confidence to invest in the service development. The programme of work • To support implementation of the service development and changes
was underpinned by two key factors: getting the right information in the business case • To raise the profile of the service and prepare stakeholders prior to the business case
to facilitate approval and ensuring that this information was underpinned by good being submitted for approval.
governance and decision-making.
Cross-divisional commitment was ultimately required to expand the service, so it was
Framing the business case imperative that all divisions were represented and contributed to service planning.
A good business case provides decision-makers with a clear vision of the service it intends Activities included reaching agreement on key activity and growth assumptions and on
to achieve and the investment required succinctly summarised as ‘a written argument that the timescales for delivery. Minutes from steering group meetings provided an audit
is intended to convince a decision-maker to approve a course of action’. It is important to trail of key planning decisions. A number of individuals working on the steering group
consider the audience reading and approving the business case, their varying knowledge were representatives at the key trust executive meetings that gave final approval of the
of MT services, and the elements that need to be covered in order to agree the case for business case. Early involvement equipped them to comprehensively present and field
investment. The following aspects were included: questions during the approval process.
• A description of MT and the commissioning rationale, including the compelling evidence
of clinical and cost-effectiveness The level of investment required was significant – more than £2 million for the first stage
• Alignment of the MT service to the wider NHS, local and the trust’s strategy, goals of service development – and required approval at trust board level.
and mission
• A clear clinical, operational and financial case that supported a structured argument for Business case development process
investment Figure 25 shows the process that was followed, which combined the pragmatic application
• Involvement of all stakeholders in development and agreement of the service model of best practice in service development and business case development methods to
and key planning assumptions, such as projected activity growth ensure the business case progressed quickly.
• Key milestones to achieve the service development and enablers of and risks to delivery
• What the service would bring to the organisation’s financial bottom line and any Figure 25. Business case development process.
mitigation that might increase the pace at which the service yields a positive return on
the investment 1 2 3
Activity profile
6 7
Define case
• The impact on other services, both internally and externally. for change
Define service Develop Business case
development 4 financial approval
and Workforce requirements
investment clinical model model process
Good governance 5
Operational requirements
A Stroke Thrombectomy Steering Group was established, which oversaw development
of the MT service plan and maintained focus and resource on this service development. Governance – Stroke Thrombectomy Steering Group
This group was chaired by the trust’s chief operating officer who acted as the programme
senior responsible officer, spanned several divisions (neurosciences, critical care and Ongoing communication to key stakeholders
imaging), and included key decision-makers capable of progressing decisions on business cases.
Be clear on the starting position and case for investment and models. To enable activity modelling, estimated start dates for each phase were
Information from internal governance processes and from cases submitted to defined, based on current workforce intelligence, with the caveat that these would be
should be used as a baseline to understand the number of potential MT patients. In reviewed in the future. The goal was to complete Phase 3 within five years – in line
developing the business case, we drew on our existing knowledge and experience of with NHS commissioning intentions – with intermediate stages implemented as service
delivering MT, which supported the development of referral pathways from the and development permitted.
the wider network and had already optimised referral methods, scanning protocols and
anaesthetic support. Profile the activity in the clinical development model
As with any activity modelling, various assumptions had to be defined and agreed by the
One of the first actions was to clearly describe the current service and inform relevant steering group. For the purposes of modelling potential activity, an agreed catchment
stakeholders in the trust of the rationale for developing a sustainable expanded service. from which most patients would be referred was defined as the Severn region, which
This included highlighting that MT was now an NHS England-commissioned service. aligned with the major trauma and neuroscience centre footprint. This was tested against
historic activity and confirmed as a reasonable modelling assumption.
Clearly articulate the clinical development process
The case for investment had to be underpinned by clinical consensus on a well-articulated The incidence of confirmed stroke across the Severn region served by our service was
pathway. The option to expand immediately to a 24/7 service was discounted at an early shown from SSNAP data to be about 4,500 per year. A 10% eligibility threshold was
stage due to the national shortage of INRs and stroke physicians. A phased approach was applied based on current criteria for treatment, assuming that both the necessary imaging
preferred, so work focused on how to structure the phasing, with options considered at referring sites and the MT service were in operation 24/7. This provided a best-case
against the following criteria: total service volume for a 24/7 service, which was adjusted using the following factors to
• Sustainable clinical services model the rate at which activity would grow:
• Maximise currently available interventional neuroradiology capacity • Rural geography of the Severn network, including the impact of transfer time
• Stroke network readiness to identify and refer patients for MT (expected referral volume • The hours of service available for each phase of service development
for each centre versus actual referral volume to date) • The impact of increased awareness of the NBT stroke MT service at referring hospitals
• Workforce availability and embedding of referrals pathways.
• Cost-effectiveness – investment versus return.
Describe the workforce required to deliver the service
The MT steering group’s recommended approach to service expansion was to stabilise the The business case identified all staff groups required to support a sustainable service and
current service, with three phases of expansion: Phase 1 expansion. As NBT is an established neuroscience centre and already a training
• Phase 1 – stabilisation of current service (9 am–4pm Monday–Friday) and expansion to centre for INRs, this allowed clinical fellows to develop skills and the potential to meet
8 am–8 pm Monday–Friday local recruitment when the service needed to expand. This has meant that NBT has been
• Phase 2 – 8 am–8 pm 7-day service able to encourage future trainees to further their careers within the department.
• Phase 3 – 24-hour 7-day service.
The NBT stroke and interventional neuroradiology teams worked closely together on the
This phasing was used as the framework to build the activity profile and subsequent MT pathway, and the business case included tandem recruitment to develop all arms of
interventional neuroradiology, ITU and HASU bed capacity. Once this approach had been the service. In reality, it was difficult to align this recruitment with the plan, and some steps
defined, it was agreed that a full business case covering all three phases would be difficult were undertaken out of sequence to ensure that good candidates could be recruited.
to produce due to workforce uncertainty and further detailed work on workforce rotas
A detailed analysis to develop specialties other than interventional neuroradiology to of ambulances. All activity assumptions and referral procedures were shared with the
provide MT was not considered necessary, as it was anticipated that INRs would also ambulance service from the outset to facilitate their negotiations with NHS England
be required to provide aneurysm coiling. However, the role of credentialing for other regarding increased activity.
professionals was seen as an important option if rota gaps need addressing in the future.
A 24/7 service will require six s. Develop the financial case
A full financial assessment was undertaken, including a full cost and income modelling
Set the operational requirements and impact exercise. The information generated from the financial model was summarised as a
Defining the potential impact on other services was essential to give the wider comparison of cost per case against tariff plus market forces factor and specialist centre
organisation understanding and assurance about the impact of increasing MT work. The top-up. The following costs per case were calculated to assess the impact of the service
key operational areas affected were: development:
• Increased numbers coming through the ED. All external referrals would be met by the • Current baseline service activity and costs
stroke team in ED, having had and at the referring centre. • Sustainable service requirements and activity levels
• Access to interventional neuroradiology angiography suite capacity and delivery of • Phase 1 service requirements and the profile of phased activity.
other interventional and diagnostic neuroradiology activity alongside provision of
emergency access. This helped to identify the volume required to support a break-even Phase 1 service
• ITU and HASU bed capacity, which was closely linked to the assumed length of stay for and when this could be expected. The modelling suggested that, with a tariff income
MT patients. We assumed that patients outside of NBT’s local catchment area would of £13,400 plus adjustments including market forces factor, and an 8 am–8 pm 5-day
return to their local stroke unit within 72 hours of MT – or earlier if clinically appropriate. service in Phase 1, including interventional neuroradiology and the anaesthetic team,
Precise modelling depended on the number of local HASU beds, average length of about 220 cases per annum would be needed to break even (40% of final planned activity).
stay, and agreements for transfer and repatriation of patients to adjacent HASUs. For
example, a HASU admitting 1,000 patients annually, with an average length of stay of Submit the business case for approval
2.5 days and 85% occupancy, may need about eight HASU beds. Adding 350 external Given the strategic significance of this development, it was agreed that all investments
MT referrals would require an additional 3–4 beds. should be set out in one phased business case to provide optimum strategic oversight for
the trust. The final investment value set out in the full business case for Phase 1 required
The two key operational protocols underpinning the service were those detailing approval at all key trust governance meetings and ultimately from the trust board. Early
the referral and repatriation processes. We were able to utilise the Severn Network engagement was essential to a ‘no surprises’ approach, with members of the steering
repatriation policy already in place for major trauma and other tertiary services. The group represented on all these groups who were able to present and support the case
referral criteria aligned to specialist commissioning referral criteria and included clear for investment.
imaging requirements for CTA to be uploaded via an established system supporting the
regional service. The business case was approved by the NBT board in October 2018, and Phase 1 has been
implemented. The Stroke Thrombectomy Steering Group will continue to review progress
Most MT referrals will present to other hospitals and require a secondary transfer, and against predicted activity and work on detailed implementation plans for weekend and
increasing numbers being transferred for MT would impact on the ambulance service, 24/7 expansion. Stroke thrombectomy is a key strategic trust priority, and this will ensure
with additional Category 2 ambulance transfers within the region and displacement that momentum remains behind this project through to successful completion.
Trial acronyms and abbreviations
Trial acronyms
BEST Acute Basilar Artery Occlusion: Endovascular Interventions vs THERAPY The Randomized, Concurrent Controlled Trial to Assess the
Standard Medical Treatment Penumbra System’s Safety and Effectiveness in the Treatment of
DAWN DWI or CTP Assessment With Clinical Mismatch in the Acute Stroke
Triage of Wake Up and Late Presenting Strokes Undergoing THRACE Mechanical Thrombectomy After Intravenous Alteplase Versus
Neurointervention With Trevo Alteplase Alone After Stroke
DEFUSE Diffusion and Perfusion Imaging Evaluation for Understanding
Stroke Evolution
EASI Endovascular Acute Stroke Intervention
ESCAPE Endovascular treatment for Small Core and Anterior circulation
Proximal occlusion with Emphasis on minimizing CT to
recanalization times
EXTEND-IA Extending the Time for Thrombolysis in Emergency Neurological
Deficits – Intra-Arterial
HERMES Highly Effective Reperfusion Evaluated in Multiple Endovascular
Stroke Trials
MR CLEAN Multicenter Randomized Clinical Trial of Endovascular Treatment
for Acute Ischemic Stroke in The Netherlands
NINDS National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke trial of
tissue plasminogen activator for acute ischaemic stroke
PISTE Pragmatic Ischaemic Thrombectomy Evaluation
REVASCAT Randomized Trial of Revascularization With Solitaire FR Device
Versus Best Medical Therapy in the Treatment of Acute Stroke
Due to Anterior Circulation Large Vessel Occlusion Presenting
Within 8 hours of Symptom Onset
SONIIA Sistema Online d'Informació de l'Ictus Agut
STOP-Stroke Screening Technology and Outcome Project in Stroke Study
SWIFT-PRIME Solitaire FR With the Intention for Thrombectomy as Primary
Endovascular Treatment for Acute Ischemic Stroke

Other acronyms and abbreviations
AIS acute ischaemic stroke HASU hyperacute stroke unit
AMPDS Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System HRG healthcare resource group
ASPECTS Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score ICA internal carotid artery
AVVV Ataxia, Visual disturbances, Vertigo, Vomiting ICER incremental cost-effectiveness ratio
BASP British Association of Stroke Physicians INR interventional neuroradiologist
BCIS British Cardiovascular Intervention Society IQR interquartile range
BCS British Cardiovascular Society ISDN Integrated Service Delivery Network
BP blood pressure ITU intensive therapy unit
CCG clinical commissioning group IVT intravenous thrombolysis
CCU coronary care unit LAO large artery occlusion
CO2 carbon dioxide LKW last known well
CSC comprehensive stroke centre MCA middle cerebral artery
CT computed tomography MDT multidisciplinary team
CTA computed tomography angiography MEND Miami Emergency Neurological Deficit
CTA-CS computed tomography angiography collateral scoring MERCI Mechanical Embolus Removal in Cerebral Ischemia
CTA-SI computed tomography angiography source images MI myocardial infarction
CTP computed tomography perfusion MINAP Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project
DGH district general hospital MIP maximum intensity projection
DIDO door-in-door-out MRA magnetic resonance angiography
DSC district stroke centre MRI magnetic resonance imaging
DWI diffusion-weighted imaging mRS modified Rankin scale
ECG electrocardiogram MT mechanical thrombectomy
ED emergency department NCCT non-contrast computed tomography
ESC European Society of Cardiology NIAP National Infarct Angioplasty Project
ESD early supported discharge NICE National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
FAST Face Arm Speech Test NIHSS National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale
FAST-ED Field Assessment Stroke Triage for Emergency Destination NMB net monetary benefit
FLAIR fluid-attenuated inversion recovery NNT number needed to treat
GCS Glasgow Coma Scale ODP operating department practitioner
GFAST Gaze–Face–Arm–Speech–Time PACS picture archiving and communication system

PPCI primary percutaneous coronary intervention
PSC primary stroke centre
QALY quality-adjusted life-year
RACE Rapid Arterial oCclusion Evaluation scale
RAPID RApid processing of PerfusIon and Diffusion
RCT randomised controlled trial
ROSIER Recognition of Stroke in the Emergency Room
SEAT stroke emergency assessment team
sICH symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage
SITS Safe Implementation of Treatment in Stroke
SSCA Scottish Stroke Care Audit
SSNAP Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme
STEMI ST elevation myocardial infarction
STP sustainability and transformation partnership
SU stroke unit
TICI Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction Scale
WTE whole-time equivalent
WTP willingness to pay

Useful resources
Learning from Stroke – lessons from stroke reconfiguration in London and Greater Manchester
www.learningfromstroke.com
Stroke in Stoke – a resource for patients, their families and carers, and staff looking after patients with stroke or conducting research related to stroke:
www.stroke-in-stoke.info/index.shtml
Contributors
Editors Chapter authors
Professor Gary A Ford Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Academic Health Science Dr Michael Allen Senior Modeller, University of Exeter Medical School
Network; Consultant Physician, Oxford University Hospitals and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
NHS Foundation Trust; Professor of Stroke Medicine, Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research
Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford and Care (CLAHRC) South West Peninsula
Professor Martin James Consultant Stroke Physician, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Dr John JM Black Medical Director, South Central Ambulance NHS
Foundation Trust; Honorary Clinical Professor, University Foundation Trust, Bicester; ED Consultant, Oxford
of Exeter Medical School and the National Institute for University Hospitals NHS FT, Oxford
Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in
Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) South West Ms Juliet Bouverie Chief Executive Officer, Stroke Association
Peninsula; Clinical Director, Stroke Programme, King’s
College London Dr Marcus Bradley Clinical Lead for Imaging, Consultant Neuroradiologist,
North Bristol NHS Trust, Bristol
Professor Phil White Professor of Interventional and Diagnostic Neuroradiology,
Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University; Honorary Professor Naomi J Fulop Professor of Health Care Organisation and Management,
Consultant Neuroradiologist Newcastle upon Tyne Department of Applied Health Research, University
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust College London
Dr Jim McLenachan Consultant Cardiologist, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds
Dr Peter McMeekin Reader, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria

University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Professor Stephen Morris Professor of Health Economics, Department of Applied

Health Research, University College London
Dr Alexander Mortimer Consultant Interventional Neuroradiologist, North Bristol

NHS Trust, Bristol

Dr Sanjeev Nayak Consultant Interventional Neuroradiologist, Royal Stoke
University Hospital, University Hospitals of North Midlands
NHS Trust, Staffordshire
Ms Kerry Pearn
Associate Research Fellow, University of Exeter Medical
School and the National Institute for Health Research
(NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health
Research and Care (CLAHRC) South West Peninsula
Dr Christopher Price Stroke Association HRH Princess Margaret Senior Reader

in Stroke Medicine, Stroke Research Group
Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle
Upon Tyne
Dr Angus IG Ramsay Senior Research Associate, Department of Applied Health

Research, University College London
Ms Carolyn Roper Senior Programme Manager, NMSK Division, North Bristol

NHS Trust, Bristol
Dr Don Sims Consultant Stroke Physician and Clinical Lead for Stroke
Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham,
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust,
Birmingham
Professor Ken Stein Professor (E&R) (Clinical), University of Exeter Medical

School; Deputy Director, the National Institute for Health
Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied
Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) South West Peninsula

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Figure 1
Proportion of patients with

incident ischaemic stroke receiving
mechanical thrombectomy
0–0.7%
0.8–1.5%
1.6–2.3%
2.4–3.1%
3.2–3.9%
4.0–4.7%
4.8–5.5%
5.6–6.3%
Missing information
Figure 3 MT Standard care
Study
ESCAPE 87 164 43 147 2.7 (1.7 to 4.4)
EXTEND-IA 25 35 14 35 3.8 (1.4 to 10.2)
MR CLEAN 76 233 51 267 2.1 (1.4 to 3.1)
PISTE 17 33 12 32 1.8 (0.7 to 4.8)
REVASCAT 45 103 29 103 2.0 (1.1 to 3.5)
SWIFT-PRIME 59 98 33 93 2.8 (1.5 to 4.9)
THERAPY 19 50 14 46 1.4 (0.6 to 3.3)
THRACE 106 200 85 202 1.6 (1.1 to 2.3)
Total (95% CI) 916 925 2.1 (1.7 to 2.5)
0.1 0.2 0.5 1 2 5 10
Favours standard care Favours MT
Figure 4
MT Standard care
Study
ESCAPE 17 164 28 147 0.5 (0.3 to 0.9)
EXTEND-IA 3 35 7 35 0.4 (0.1 to 1.6)
MR CLEAN 49 233 59 267 0.9 (0.6 to 1.4)
PISTE 7 33 4 32 1.9 (0.5 to 7.2)
REVASCAT 19 103 16 103 1.2 (0.6 to 2.6)
SWIFT-PRIME 9 98 12 97 0.7 (0.3 to 1.8)
THERAPY 6 50 11 46 0.4 (0.2 to 1.3)
THRACE 24 202 27 206 0.9 (0.5 to 1.6)
Total (95% CI) 918 933 0.8 (0.6 to 1.1)
0.1 0.2 0.5 1 2 5 10
Favours MT Favours standard care
Figure 5
Admitted to hospital
95,500
CT head scan result
87% A 13%
Confirmed ischaemic Haemorrhagic

83,090 12,420
Imaging
CTA result
40% B 60%
Large artery occlusion Small artery occlusion

33,230 49,850
80% C 20%
Moderate/severe stroke Mild stroke (NIHSS <6)

(NIHSS ≥6) 6,650
26,590
Advanced imaging pathway
78% D 22% 5,850
68.5% E 31.5%
Known time of onset 95%

(KTO)/last known well Stroke unknown Presentation >12 hours
(LKW) <12 hours time of onset and <24 hours Presentation >24 hours
20,740 4,010 1,620 230
Early presenters F Late presenters 9,400

15,350d 5,390
25% H 75%
71% G 29%
MT eligible Clinical/CT exclusions:
mRS >2, ASPECTS <6
Early presenters Clinical/CT exclusions:
(receive IVT if eligible) mRS >2, ASPECTS <5 2,340 7,060
10,900 4,450
Advanced imaging (CTP or CTACS or MR) result

Advanced imaging
(CTP or CTAcs or MR) 5% M 95%
result
57% K 43%
DAWN DAWN
95% I 5% inclusion ineligible
Advanced imaging 90 1,520
inclusion: large volume
penumbral tissue or good Advanced imaging
Advanced imaging inclusion:
collateral circulation and exclusion
large volume penumbral Advanced imaging
small core
tissue or good collateral exclusion
circulation and small core 1,330 1,010
10,360 545
98% L 2%
7% J 93%
9,630 1,390
Re-canalised Re-canalised
725 30
10,140
7% N 93%
Re-canalised UK eligible population

770
10,140–11,530
Figure 6
(a) (b) (c )

(log scale)
Figure 8
(a) (b) (c )

Attending a unit with 1,500 admissions/year

Within 30 minutes
Figure 9
Travel time to IVT

Travel time to MT
Number of PSCs (in addition to 24 CSCs)

Figure 10
Travel time to IVT
Travel time to MT
Ambulance decision bias (allowable delay)

to go directly to CSC (minutes)
Figure 11
(a) (b)
,
year
,
2,500 year
Ambulance decision bias (allowable delay) Ambulance decision bias (allowable delay)
to go directly to CSC (minutes) to go directly to CSC (minutes)
Figure 12
Figure 13
Figure 14
Figure 15
Figure 16
Figure 17
Figure 18
Figure 19
Figure 20
75
PPCI
IVT
50
25
Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1
2008 2009 2010 2011
Figure 21
Confirmed acute stroke

Previously fit and well (mRS 0–2)
NIHSS >5
Do immediate CTA (arch to vertex)

• Anterior circulation stroke
- Severe disabling neurological deficit (NIHSS >5)
- Within 6 hours of onset of symptoms OR wake-up-stroke/unknown onset based on
CTP findings (treated up to 24 hours)
• Brain stem stroke
- Treatment can be delivered up to 24 hours from onset and occlusion of basilar artery
- Potentially eligible even if consciousness impaired and/or patient ventilated
Discuss with stroke consultant on-call/INR (at the local hospital)
CTA findings that suggest need for intervention

• Intracranial ICA occlusion (including carotid T and L occlusions)
• M1 (trunk of the MCA) or M2 (MCA branch in Sylvian fissure) occlusion
• Vertebro-basilar occlusion
Stroke consultant/designated SpR at local hospital

to discuss with stroke consultant at CSC
• Start standard-dose IVT if indicated and not already given
• Arrange transfer via immediate (critical) transfer <8 minutes
• Neuroradiologist to liaise with neurointerventional theatre staff and anaesthetic team
• Patient should have venous access and urinary catheter prior to transfer
• Do head CT immediately after procedure and again between 22 and 36 hours
• Ensure patients are monitored according to the MT care pathway (local policy)
• All cases should be discussed in the stroke neuroradiology MDT
Figure 22
14
12
10
% of patients who 8
were thrombolysed
out of all strokes 6
0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 23
Median door-to-needle time in UK vs Global

Minutes
90
80
70
UK
60 Global
50
40
30
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
1A 1B
Suspected stroke Suspected stroke
Stroke unit/ward 8 HASUs (24/7)

Greater Manchester (x12)
London (x30)
24 SUs
Community
Community
1C 1C
Suspected stroke Suspected stroke
≤4 hrs >4 hrs

1x 24/7 HASU
2 IH HASUs (extended)
1x 24/7 HASU 11
2 IH HASUs DSCs
10 DSCs
Community Community
rehabilitation services rehabilitation services
Figure 24
Decision to • London: Led by regional authority; ‘holding the line’, e.g on model
• GMA: Led by network; ‘consensus’ approach
change • GMB: Led by commissioners; ‘holding the line’, e.g. on implementation approach
Decision on which • London: Simple, inclusive model

• GMA: More complex, less inclusive model
model to implement • GMB: Less complex and more inclusive than GMA; more in line with London
• London: ‘Big bang’ implementation; accreditation – standards linked to financial levers; hands-on facilitation
Implementation
• GMA: Pilot, then phased; no accreditation or financial levers; platform to share learning
approach • GMB: 'Big bang' implementation; no accreditation or financial levers; hands-on facilitation, post-implementation
• London: HASUs provide interventions; 93% treated in HASU

Implementation
• GMA: HASUs provide interventions; DSCs vary; 39% treated in HASU
outcomes • GMB: HASUs provide interventions; 86% treated in HASU
Intervention Clinical • London: More likely than elsewhere overall

• GMA: No more likely than elsewhere overall (except HASUs)
outcomes interventions • GMB: More likely than elsewhere overall
• London: LOS = (1.2 days per patient); mortality = (96 lives per annum)
Clinical
• GMA: LOS = (2 days per patient); mortality = NSD
outcomes • GMB: LOS = (1.5 days per patient); mortality = in HASUs (68 lives per annum)
• London: Cost =; QALYs =; NMB >0

Cost
• GMA: Cost = ; QALYs =; NMB >0
effectiveness • GMB: Cost =; QALYs =; NMB <0
London and GMA:

Patient and carer
• Good experience overall
experience • Clear communication needed at each stage
Figure 25
1 2 3 6 7
Activity profile
Define case
Define service Develop Business case
for change
development 4 financial approval
and Workforce requirements
investment clinical model model process
5
Operational requirements
Governance – Stroke Thrombectomy Steering Group
Ongoing communication to key stakeholders

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t: +44 (0) 1865 784944 Magdalen Centre North

e: info@oxfordahsn.org Oxford Science Park
t: @OxfordAHSN Oxford OX4 4GA, UK
www.OxfordAHSN.org

Mechanical Thrombectomy For Acute Ischaemic Stroke: An Implementation Guide For The UK

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Mechanical Thrombectomy For Acute Ischaemic Stroke: An Implementation Guide For The UK

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Foreword

1 Evidence for MT in AIS

2 Patients eligible for MTT

3 CSC and PSC configurations

6 Lessons from PPCI for ST elevation MI

7 Lessons from a 24/7 MT service

11 Developing a business case for MT

Page 1 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 2 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

metropolitan areas, with others proving protracted or even stalled. 5.6–6.3%

There is now overwhelming level 1A evidence that modern-device MT achieves

Efficacy of MT beyond 6 hours from onset

differentially influenced by use of advanced imaging. 87% A 13%

Confirmed ischaemic Haemorrhagic

subdural haematomas would also not be entered in to SSNAP or SSCA.

Clinical and radiological exclusions among the 71% G 29%

and pre-stroke mRS ≥3 (about 9% of patients 16, 48

penumbral tissue or good Advanced imaging

Figure 9. Travel times in a drip-and-ship

Attending a unit with 1,500 admissions/year

includes the transfer travel time and a

Chris Price and John Black

25 What we learned from implementation

Continuous data collection Sick patients with alternative diagnoses

Establish a multi-professional and patient project group Identify funding

Box 4. INR and nursing rota Box 5. Referral protocols

Do immediate CTA (arch to vertex)

involvement of the voluntary sector, often via the Stroke Association.

Training of individuals from other interventional specialties to deliver MT will be necessary

Greater Manchester. The London centralisation resulted in significant reductions in

Decision on which • London: Simple, inclusive model

Page 64 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 65 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 66 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Dr Jim McLenachan Consultant Cardiologist, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds

Dr Peter McMeekin Reader, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria

Professor Stephen Morris Professor of Health Economics, Department of Applied

Dr Alexander Mortimer Consultant Interventional Neuroradiologist, North Bristol

Page 68 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Dr Christopher Price Stroke Association HRH Princess Margaret Senior Reader

Dr Angus IG Ramsay Senior Research Associate, Department of Applied Health

Ms Carolyn Roper Senior Programme Manager, NMSK Division, North Bristol

Professor Ken Stein Professor (E&R) (Clinical), University of Exeter Medical

Page 69 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 70 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 71 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

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Page 73 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 74 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 75 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Page 76 Mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischaemic stroke

Proportion of patients with

CT head scan result

Confirmed ischaemic Haemorrhagic

Large artery occlusion Small artery occlusion

Moderate/severe stroke Mild stroke (NIHSS <6)

Known time of onset 95%

Early presenters F Late presenters 9,400

Advanced imaging (CTP or CTACS or MR) result

Dr Jim McLenachan Consultant Cardiologist, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds

Dr Peter McMeekin Reader, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria

Professor Stephen Morris Professor of Health Economics, Department of Applied

Dr Alexander Mortimer Consultant Interventional Neuroradiologist, North Bristol

Dr Christopher Price Stroke Association HRH Princess Margaret Senior Reader

Dr Angus IG Ramsay Senior Research Associate, Department of Applied Health

Ms Carolyn Roper Senior Programme Manager, NMSK Division, North Bristol

Professor Ken Stein Professor (E&R) (Clinical), University of Exeter Medical

• London: Cost =; QALYs =; NMB >0