By Hayley Lowther & Nicola Gaskins

In this Stroke Awareness Month, May 2022, we are raising awareness of the stroke research activities happening in the Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast (ARC NWC). Despite progress in the prevention and treatment of stroke, significant improvements are still needed to address the prevalence and incidence of this leading cause of death and disability. Stroke was identified as a priority area from the outset of ARC NWC, particularly as the geographical area it covers is disproportionately affected by risk factors for stroke, such as deprivation.

Our Stroke IMPaCT Roundtable, launched in May 2020, brings together key stakeholders across the North West Coast with expertise and/or experience of stroke care and implementation. Meetings facilitate discussion and collaboration in identifying priorities for improving the delivery of care for stroke patients. Visit our new Stroke IMPaCT Roundtable webpage for more information on our objectives, representatives and activities so far.

Our stroke research activities span the entire stroke care pathway. Projects range from focusing on prevention, such as developing a method to support individuals with anticoagulation medicines to prevent strokes, right through to researching approaches to improve the psychological wellbeing of stroke survivors, such as motivational interviewing therapy after stroke. In a systematic review, we have summarised evidence of how quality improvement collaboratives have been used to improve the delivery of treatment for stroke patients in hospital. A number of Rapid Conversion of Evidence Summaries (RaCES) have been published and others are currently being co-produced by researchers and health and care professionals to convert systematic reviews on various topics in stroke (e.g. evidence-based guidelines, use of statins, medicine adherence) into short evidence summaries that can be used to inform practice.

We would like to hear more about stroke-related research and innovation activities that are happening across the North West Coast. We will shortly be sending around a short survey to ask our ARC NWC member organisations to share your activities and priorities for further research. Our aim is to gain an overview of research activities in the North West Coast, identify potential gaps, promote collaboration amongst member organisations, and reduce duplication of effort to ultimately improve the outcomes of those affected by stroke.