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I was able to attend the first part but had to leave just after 19.00. It was, in my view, a decent presentation of the achievements in stroke care which however totally failed to address the failures. Medical care in strokes has indeed improved, but there is so much more to it. A question asked by an audience member about joining up and improving the social and non-hospital care was glossed skillfully and the answer avoided any specific measures that may have been implemented in favour of a generalised agreement that it could be better. There were no specific assurances about nursing or social care, and although I fully support the medical advances and applaud them, and I am an advocate of telemedicine and have been for some time, it is not "working in partnership with the public and GPs" if the whole process including care of people who will not recover is not addressed. It is genuinely fab that some things have improved, but given the fact that CQC and Dr Foster - who were touted during this presentation as organisations who had awarded East Kent high marks in audits - were giving them the same high marks last year which was when I personally witnessed chaotic and inadequate nursing care, appalling management of resources, and complete neglect of patients, it is hard to buy into them. Indeed, one of the procedures being bigged up in this presentation, the clot busting, was one of the reasons (or excuses, perhaps) I was given at the time for the chaos: I was told that it had been implemented too soon and without enough planning, leaving staff shortages and over-booking of beds. In short, too many patients and too few staff as a direct result of poor planning of these new techniques.
So, a mixed bag. A glossy presentation of some good achievements, but absolutely no realistic assurances of that crucial component, good nursing care. A real promotion of medical elements, and that should be acknowledged and applauded, but a complete avoidance of any specifics or proof of ordinary life improvement. I have no faith in CQC assessments not only because of my experience of East Kent stroke services, but also because in my line of work I have seen how shallow and inadequate and very subjective CQC assessments can be. So I am not as impressed as a lay person by CQCs approval as I realise it is relatively meaningless. Lots of use of the usual words like passionate, partnership, excellence, outcomes, but few if any specific examples of support that would reassure me that things had changed significantly. Disappointing, if you know what you are looking for.