I try not to do two posts a day, but I just had to make a comment on stroke policy as well. The Government have today put out their new National Stroke Strategy. It’s a ten-year strategy, like most of Gordon’s strategies. This is a good way of seeming to do something, but postponing the time when it is judged a failure. Unfortunately, time does catch up with this Government, as we saw with the new Cancer Plan earlier this week – seven years on from the first attempt.

Stroke rehabilitation has long been a topic of concern to me. It astounds me that only half of people who suffer strokes start their rehab within 6 months of the stroke. It astounds me because so many who suffer strokes do not die immediately, but within those 6 months. There is a clear correlation, surely, between the lack of rehabilitation and the death rate due to the stroke’s after-effects.

The inadequacy of rehabilitation facilities has been obvious for years, yet little has been done. Labour have had ten years already to sort it out, now they say it will take another ten years. This is little help to the many people who have had strokes but who cannot access the necessary rehabilitation.

Of equal concern should be today’s report from the Healthcare Commission about the state of healthcare provision in Britain today. It points out the inadequacy of Primary Care Trusts in providing for the needs of people with long-term medical conditions – a matter of special concern given that Blackpool and Cleveleys have a high concentration of such individuals. 42% of local residents live in a household where at least one person has a long-term condition.

The report contains so many worrying statistics that I could blog all day about them. It shows the reality of healthcare today. Some modest progress in what is being measured, a lack of progress in those services which are not measured, and those aspects of healthcare such as ‘dignity’ which can never be measured.