Introduction
Welcome to the health economics area on SSNAP. Over the past 3 years the SSNAP team, in collaboration with NHS England, have pursued an ambitious research project to derive and report patient-level estimates on the cost of stroke care. Using SSNAP data as well as other sources it has been possible to estimate the health and social care cost of stroke up to 5 years after admission. These important data should be of interest to everyone with a professional interest in stroke.
What is the economic burden of stroke care?
The findings of this important study which have recently been published and the full paper titled "The economic burden of stroke care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland" is free to access below using the relevant radio button or by following this link:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2396987317746516. A video from the 2016 UK Stroke Forum by Dr Ben Bray, Stroke Programme Research Director at the Royal College of Physicians, who gave a talk entitled Social inequalities and outcomes after stroke can be found here
https://vimeo.com/198073484. Additionally a portfolio has been generated which estimates the cost of stroke for each provider and CCG/LHB. NHS costs include acute treatment costs, bed stays, inpatient and post-discharge rehabilitation, drug prescribing and follow up GP and hospital visits. Social care costs include the costs of nursing home admission and packages of care. They are not the costs for a specific hospital, but the overall 1 year and 5 year cost across all providers caring for patients. The health economics model produced estimates of the average cost of stroke according to patients' age, sex, stroke type and stroke severity.
How can these data be used by stroke services?
SSNAP have produced health economic tools for Early Supported Discharge (ESD) and thrombolysis which are available to download below. These tools illustrate the opportunity to save health and social care costs for your cohort of patients and provide financial management information to complement quality of care information from SSNAP. These tools can be used to calculate the costs and benefits of increasing the percentage of patients discharged with ESD and the percentage of patients treated with thrombolysis in your team or area.
Is there more detailed information available?
There is a full methodology report and a summary slideshow available to download below, which provide further information regarding the health economics model.