Scottish stroke improvement programme
Annual report 2025

About this release

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme 2025 annual national report presents data from the Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA). This describes the quality of stroke care in each acute hospital, grouped by NHS board, from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024, measuring each hospital against Scottish stroke care standards (2016).  The data are used extensively by clinical teams and their managers to monitor the effect of changes they make to how care is delivered. The full report can be found on the SSCA website.

Main points

• In Scotland in 2024, 11,341 people had a final diagnosis of stroke, compared to 11,137 in 2023. Of these, 9,625 (84.9%) were ischaemic, a clot in the brain, while 1,560 (13.8%) were due to intracerebral haemorrhage, a bleed, while 156 (1.4%) were cause unknown.

A graph showing performance against the SSCA agreed standards. There has been small improvement since 2023, but performance remains below pre pandemic levels.

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Inpatient stroke care standards from 2019 to 2024

• Between 2023 and 2024 there has been a small improvement in bundle performance across Scotland (50.4% versus 52.9%), but results have not recovered to levels before 2020.
• Of the 9,625 ischaemic strokes in Scotland 1,045 patients (10.8%) received thrombolysis, a clot bursting medication that restores blood flow in vessels blocked by clots, a similar rate to 2023 (11.3%).
• In 2024, 212 patients received a thrombectomy, a procedure to remove a blood clot from a blood vessel, across Scotland. This is an increase from 153 in 2023 and 112 in 2022 but still represents only 2.2% of the total number of people who had an ischaemic stroke in 2024.
• The national percentage of outpatients with stroke or Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) reviewed by a stroke specialist within 4 days remains unchanged at 76%, short of the target of 80%.

Background

The SSCA monitors the quality of care provided by the hospitals in all NHS boards by collating data collected by the stroke managed clinical networks (MCNs). Appropriate care is measured using the stroke care bundle, which comprises four key components: admission to a stroke unit, swallow screen, brain imaging and aspirin. Not all patients are eligible for all four components. The stroke care bundle is important because achieving it is associated with a reduced risk of dying and an increased chance of getting back home. These data are used by the Scottish Government to monitor progress against the Scottish stroke care standards (2016) and the Scottish stroke improvement plan (2014). NHS boards are expected to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet the Scottish standards and to work with their stroke MCNs to improve their standards of care locally.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 18 August 2026.