A newly refurbished and modernised Hyper Acute Stroke Unit has been officially opened at Harrogate District Hospital, funded by a legacy left to the Harrogate Hospital and Community Friends.
The opening was performed by Angela Skeels, a former employee of the NHS Foundation Trust who herself had a stroke, joined by Andrew Jones MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough.
Angela Skeels said:
I feel very privileged to be here today to help open this new unit.
Thanks to the unit, more people will become stroke survivors.
Andrew Jones MP said:
The importance of stroke services can be underplayed in the NHS, but someone in the country has a stroke every five minutes. It can be a long and complicated path back to health, requiring input from a wide range of teams, including Speech and Language Therapy and Physiotherapy.
Harrogate District Hospital is among the very best and this is one a series of development that make it special.
The modernisation was made possible by a bequest left to the Hospital in a will.
Sandra Dodson, Chairman of Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust said:
We are delighted to be officially opening this new unit, which has been made possible thanks to the generosity of the late Mrs Barbara Williams, via the Hospital and Community Friends.
We receive many charitable donations each year, which we are able to use to support the work of the Trust and this is one example of how we are using these to improve the quality of patient care. We are deeply grateful to each and every one of our donors, large or small.
As part of improvements in stroke care, the Trust has also established a new Community Stroke Team to work with patients when they leave hospital, but still need help and support when they return to their local community. It is also working with other local Trusts to provide a 24/7 Consultant stroke service, using new technology to enable doctors to assess patients who are in other units, via a computer screen.
