Table 1.
Descriptive statistics
| Variable | HASUs* | RATs† | NRATs | NAITs |
| No. of patients | 14 720 | 112 339 | 11 693 | 6644 |
| No. of stroke teams | 8 | 147 | 32 | 66 |
| Percentages of patients (%) | ||||
| Age | ||||
| <50 years | 8.47 | 5.12 | 5.69 | 3.49 |
| 50–59 years | 11.84 | 8.40 | 8.76 | 6.73 |
| 60–69 years | 16.55 | 16.04 | 13.72 | 14.83 |
| 70–79 years | 25.39 | 26.77 | 25.12 | 26.78 |
| 80–89 years | 28.31 | 32.16 | 33.98 | 36.14 |
| 90–99 years | 9.08 | 11.21 | 12.30 | 11.86 |
| >100 years | 0.35 | 0.30 | 0.44 | 0.18 |
| Gender | ||||
| Male | 51.78 | 49.68 | 48.13 | 48.43 |
| Ethnicity | ||||
| White | 62.35 | 92.60 | 67.48 | 91.59 |
| Asian | 9.99 | 1.91 | 8.71 | 2.23 |
| Black | 7.47 | 0.54 | 7.12 | 0.84 |
| Mixed | 0.92 | 0.21 | 0.79 | 0.18 |
| Ethnicity not known | 12.11 | 4.32 | 10.31 | 4.29 |
| Ethnicity other | 7.16 | 0.42 | 5.58 | 0.87 |
| Social-economic deprivation | ||||
| Low deprivation | 31.51 | 21.36 | 30.63 | 16.68 |
| Moderate deprivation | 29.91 | 22.79 | 28.48 | 24.89 |
| High deprivation | 20.62 | 24.62 | 20.15 | 25.81 |
| Very high deprivation | 14.94 | 23.24 | 15.18 | 20.14 |
| Deprivation not known | 3.02 | 8.00 | 5.56 | 12.48 |
| Stroke related co-morbidities | ||||
| Heart failure | 6.28 | 5.52 | 7.09 | 5.10 |
| Hypertension | 61.83 | 53.57 | 62.46 | 54.21 |
| Atrial fibrillation | 17.87 | 21.12 | 21.64 | 21.73 |
| Diabetes | 24.00 | 19.34 | 23.67 | 19.37 |
| Previous stroke | 24.21 | 27.55 | 26.05 | 25.98 |
| Disability | ||||
| Previous mRS=1 | – | – | 6.69 | 6.44 |
| Previous mRS=2 | – | – | 12.13 | 9.47 |
| Previous mRS=3 | – | – | 18.85 | 21.22 |
| Previous mRS=4 | – | – | 40.54 | 46.64 |
| Previous mRS=5 | – | – | 21.80 | 16.23 |
| Stroke severity | ||||
| Mild stroke (NIHSS<5) | 44.35 | 45.22 | 30.43 | 27.26 |
| Moderate stroke (NIHSS 5–14) | 35.94 | 33.85 | 43.60 | 46.81 |
| Severe stroke (NIHSS 15–20) | 9.71 | 9.43 | 13.67 | 13.76 |
| Very severe (NIHSS>20) | 10.00 | 11.50 | 12.31 | 12.18 |
| Stroke pathology | ||||
| Intracerebral haemorrhage | 11.40 | 10.70 | 13.15 | 13.97 |
| Need for therapy | ||||
| Occupational therapy (n_OT) | 79.93 | 79.78 | 87.35 | 95.15 |
| Physiotherapy (n_PT) | 83.13 | 84.58 | 88.94 | 95.89 |
| Speech and language therapy (n_SALT) | 56.11 | 45.25 | 65.39 | 62.73 |
| Psychological therapy (n_PSY) | 2.85 | 3.32 | 14.87 | 18.08 |
| Therapy service model | ||||
| Therapy available at weekends | 25.82 | 25.43 | 25.80 | 25.93 |
| Patient transferred from a HASU | 0.10 | 0.10 | 67.23 | 0.98 |
| Adverse events | ||||
| Patient suffered a urinary tract infection | 6.17 | 4.76 | 8.18 | 8.19 |
| Mortality | ||||
| Deceased | 4.97 | 14.79 | 12.01 | 4.38 |
| Transferred to another inpatient unit | 55.56 | 10.22 | 18.40 | 4.82 |
| Mean (SD) | ||||
| LoS‡ | 4.10 (3.67) | 13.93 (17.39) | 23.14 (23.90) | 37.37 (26.36) |
| n_OT x OT average daily minutes | 19.95 (19.05) | 15.53 (17.17) | 17.85 (17.28) | 17.65 (14.94) |
| n_PT x PT average daily minutes | 20.52 (16.68) | 15.29 (14.28) | 18.28 (15.97) | 19.46 (13.98) |
| n_SALT x SALT average daily minutes | 10.63 (14.92) | 4.60 (8.65) | 7.61 (10.79) | 6.00 (9.51) |
| n_PSY x PSY average daily minutes | 0.54 (3.86) | 0.10 (0.92) | 0.88 (4.06) | 0.55 (1.80) |
| Order of team in patient pathway | 1.01 (0.13) | 1.03 (0.18) | 2.00 (0.47) | 2.11 (0.48) |
*Units in Greater Manchester that have HASUs are not considered here.
†HASUs are essentially RATs, the descriptive statistics reported here for RATs exclude those that are also classified as HASUs.
‡SSNAP records LoS in minutes. To ease interpretation, this record is reported in days by dividing SSNAP record by 1440 and rounding it to the closest integer number.
HASUs, hyper-acute stroke units; LoS, length of stay; mRS, modified Rankin Scale; NAITs, Non-Acute Inpatient Teams; NIHSS, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale; NRATs, Non-Routinely admitting Acute Teams; RATS, Routinely Admitting Teams; SSNAP, Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme.