Scottish stroke improvement programme
Annual report 2026

About this release

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme 2026 annual national report includes data from the Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA). It describes the quality of stroke care delivered by each acute hospital, grouped by NHS board, during 2025 and assesses performance against the Scottish Stroke Care Standards (2016). The full report can be found on the SSCA website.

Main points

• In Scotland in 2025, 11,048 people had a final diagnosis of stroke, compared with 11,341 in 2024. Of these, 9,443 (85.5%) had an ischaemic stroke, 1,468 (13.3%) had an intracerebral haemorrhage and 137 (1.2%) had no definite stroke type recorded.
• Between 2024 and 2025 there was a small improvement in bundle performance across Scotland, increasing from 53.1% to 56.7%. However, performance remains below the achieved level in 2019, when 64% of patients received all eligible components of the bundle.

Line chart showing the percentage of confirmed stroke patients in Scotland achieving four inpatient stroke care standards and the overall inpatient care bundle between 2021 and 2025. The standards include receiving aspirin within 1 day, brain imaging within 12 hours, a swallow screen within 4 hours, and admission to a stroke unit within 1 day. The inpatient bundle represents the percentage of patients receiving all four elements of care. Across the five-year period, brain imaging and aspirin consistently achieved the highest performance, increasing from 88.4% and 91.2% in 2021 to 91.6% and 92.2% in 2025 respectively. Performance for stroke unit admission and swallow screening declined between 2021 and 2022 before improving steadily to 72.1% and 70.8% in 2025. The inpatient care bundle showed the lowest overall performance, falling from 55.8% in 2021 to 49.0% in 2022 before increasing each year to 56.7% in 2025. Overall, all standards showed improvement between 2024 and 2025, with the largest increase observed for the inpatient care bundle.

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Inpatient stroke care standards from 2021 to 2025

• Of the 9,443 ischaemic strokes in Scotland 1,095 (11.6%) received thrombolysis. This represents a small increase compared with 2024, when 1,045 patients (10.8%) received thrombolysis.
• In 2025, 210 patients received thrombectomy treatment across Scotland, similar to the 217 patients treated in 2024. Overall, thrombectomy was provided to 1.9% of all stroke patients in 2025.
• The national percentage of outpatients with stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA) reviewed within 4 days remains unchanged at 76% in 2025, below the national target of 80%.

Background

The SSCA monitors the quality of care provided by the hospitals across all NHS boards by collating data collected by the Local Audit Coordinators (LACs) and associated stroke managed clinical networks (MCNs). Quality of 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 every component. Achievement of the stroke care bundle is associated with a lower risk of death and an increased likelihood of returning 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 (2023). 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 August 2027.