Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust has been named as the lead recruiting site for stroke research across England, at the annual South West stroke forum.

This marks the second year in succession RCHT’s neurovascular research team has achieved the highest recruitment to studies in the stroke research portfolio out of all the large acute hospital trusts in England.

Last year just under 500 patients were recruited and this year the team has remained top with a total of 358 new stroke patients recruited.

Dr Frances Harrington, consultant stroke physician, said: “The team put their success down to several factors - a dedicated, flexible team; excellent support from the stroke clinical team including nurses and therapists, radiology, labs and pharmacy and most importantly patients affected by stroke and their carers.”

The neurovascular research team currently has a wide variety of studies open from hyper acute, the immediate hours after a stroke, to community based rehabilitation studies.

As a result many Cornish stroke patients have helped expand the evidence base in stroke.

At the South West stroke event Dr Martin James, consultant stroke physician at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, presented an analysis of the figures from across the peninsular and from this was able to breakdown the specific progress of the Trust on a national level.

The result was based on statistics collected by the National Institute of Health Research over the course of the 2016-17 financial year.

Stroke research at RCHT started in 2007 as part of the South West Clinical Research Network, one of only six networks established in England at the time.

The original national aims included broadening research opportunities for patients and carers and ensuring research in the NHS was of the highest quality.

Since then research within the NHS, as part of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), has really taken off and in Cornwall the neurovascular/stroke research team continues to see growing numbers of people affected by stroke taking part in national and international research studies.

“We are very lucky that so many of our patients are keen to take part in research studies,” adds Frances. “Their participation helps us to learn much more about treating and living with the effects of stroke so that we can improve care now and for the future.”