Stroke deaths in England halved in the decade up to 2010 as a result of overhauls which saw more patients taken to specialist centres, a review has found.
There was a 55 per cent drop in the death rates for strokes, caused when the blood supply to parts of the brain is cut off by a clot or bleed, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
While the number of strokes occurring fell by around 20 per cent, the major driver of was that more people were surviving, the University of Oxford researchers said - however this can be costly.
"Acute and long-term management of such patients is expensive, and the NHS is already spending about 5 per cent of its budget on stroke care," the authors said.
"By focusing on prevention and reducing the occurrence of stroke, major resources can be conserved."(Notice the wrong focus, the idiocy of stroke leaders on display.)