Patient Pathway
​
Stroke is a medical emergency and is normally not anticipated.
It is therefore important to always have available beds for new service users, this requires an efficient patient pathway through the hospital.
​
You should try to have a good understanding of the pathway as you may work at different stages within it and will certainly be referring patients to some of the below teams.
​
​
​
​
Time Since
Stroke
Location Within Pathway
Months
Hours
Days
Weeks
Hyper Acute Stroke Unit (HASU)
Medically stabalising and monitoring of situation
Initial Multi Disiplinary Assessments (Therapies) and rehabilitation
Respiratory Care, Pressure Care, Positioning,
Establishing ability to transfer and seating.
Accident and Emergency
Urgent medical care
Brain imaging to identify type of stroke
Thrombolytic (clot busting) treatment if required
Acute Stroke Unit (ASU)
Rehabilitation within the Multi Disciplinary Team
Discharge planning
Ongoing referral for additional rehabilitation or care
​
​
Enhanced Supported Discharge Team (ESD)
​Identify pateints with the potental for earlier discharge
Provide intensive rehabilitation in community for upto a couple of weeks.
Community Stroke Team (CST)
For patients who are more effectivly rehabilited within the community or can not attend hospital.
Medical Day Hospital (MDH)
Once a patient is able to safely attend hospital they can continue rehabilitation in a day hospital setting