Is Primary Care a Neglected Piece of the Jigsaw in Ensuring Optimal Stroke Care? Results of a National Study

David L. Whitford; Anne Hickey; Frances Horgan; Bernadette O'Sullivan; Hannah McGee; Desmond O'Neill

BMC Fam Pract. 2009;10:27

Conclusion

In summary, general practice is well placed to provide primary and secondary prevention of stroke and long-term management of stroke patients. It is not fulfilling this potential in the Irish health system at present. The involvement of primary care in providing a structured approach to stroke management would appear to be essential to any comprehensive national programme of stroke care. It is proposed that an adequately funded and resourced system of structured stroke care is needed in order to address the deficiencies identified in this study.

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Acknowledgments

We thank other Irish National Audit of Stroke Care (INASC) Steering Group members: Professor Seamus Cowman (Nursing and Midwifery RCSI), Dr Sean Murphy (Midland Regional Hospital, Mullingar), Dr. Emer Shelley (Epidemiology & Public Health Medicine RCSI), Professor Miriam Wiley (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin), Professor Ronan Conroy (Epidemiology & Public Health Medicine RCSI).

We thank the INASC Project Research Staff at the Division of Population Health Sciences (Psychology), RCSI: Ms Karen Galligan, Ms Helen Corrigan, Ms Maeve Proctor, Ms Oonagh Mullan, Ms Abigail Henderick, Ms Anna-May Fitzgerald, Ms Philippa Coughlan, Ms Claire Donnellan, Dr. Maja Barker and Ms Maeve Royston (General Practice). We thank the Irish Heart Foundation National Stroke Review Group for their support and advice throughout the project. We acknowledge the assistance of Professor Richard Thomson, University of Newcastle, UK and thank the general practitioners who participated.

Funding information

This research was funded by the Irish Heart Foundation in association with the Department of Health and Children, Republic of Ireland.

Reprint Address

Corresponding author email: David L. Whitford - dwhitford@rcsi-mub.com

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cite this: Is Primary Care a Neglected Piece of the Jigsaw in Ensuring Optimal Stroke Care? Results of a National Study - Medscape - Apr 29, 2009.

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