Sarah Read was just 31 when she died
Sarah with her mum Jillian (Image: Jillian Read)
The mum of a young woman who died after suffering two strokes has welcomed a 24/7 life-saving service in Lancashire but said “it shouldn’t have taken this long”.
Sarah Read from Preston was just 31 when she died in August 2022 after suffering two strokes due to an underlying heart condition. When Sarah had presented at A&E at the Royal Preston Hospital in April 2022, having suffered a stroke, she was told that the potentially life-saving treatment she needed was only available between 9am and 5pm.
Thrombectomy is a minimally invasive procedure to remove a blood clot from an artery in the brain, restoring blood flow and reducing stroke-related disability, and can mean the difference between life and death. Approximately 10 to 15 per cent of stroke patients are eligible for thrombectomy.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH), which runs the Royal Preston Hospital, is one of three specialist centres in the Northwest England region commissioned to provide a thrombectomy service for patients. But the service only became available 24/7 from this month due to long-standing difficulties in recruiting and retaining the specialists needed to perform the procedure.
Sarah’s mum Jillian, who attended an inquest into her daughter’s death in 2023, welcomed the extension of the service but
“I miss Sarah with all my heart,” Jillian, from Burnley, said. “It shouldn’t have taken this long and patients have died waiting for it.”
Stroke delivery networks were introduced, back in 2021, in order to “reduce inequalities between patients in access to, and outcomes from, healthcare services and to ensure services are provided in an integrated way where this might reduce health inequalities”. But the lack of a 24/7 service in Preston led to delays in Sarah’s treatment.
At the time of Sarah’s stroke, hospitals in Salford and Walton were able to offer a 24/7 thrombectomy service, but during the inquest into her death the coroner heard that the North West’s integrated stroke delivery network had told doctors in Preston not to ask either Salford or Walton if a patient can be transferred due to the “fragility” of the service.
Doctors in Preston “pleaded with” their counterparts in Salford, for Sarah to be transferred there. Although doctors in Manchester initially refused, they eventually conceded, but by the time Sarah underwent a thrombectomy it was outside of the six-hour ‘golden period’.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals confirmed this week that the thrombectomy service is now available at Preston following “extensive planning and recruitment”. Royal Preston Hospital, as the Comprehensive Stroke Centre for Lancashire and South Cumbria, will provide the service, supported by local stroke units for initial and after treatment care and rehabilitation.
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