Welcome to the new home of the National Clinical Guideline for Stroke

About

The National Clinical Guideline for Stroke provides authoritative, evidence-based practice guidance to improve the quality of care delivered to every adult who has a stroke in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, regardless of age, gender, type of stroke, location, or any other feature. The guideline is intended for: 
  • Those providing care – nurses, doctors, allied health professionals, care staff 
  • Those receiving care – patients, their families, their carers
  • Those commissioning or providing stroke services
  • Anyone seeking to improve the care of people with stroke. 
The guideline was first published by the Royal College of Physicians in 2000.  It has been regularly updated and the fifth edition was published in 2016.  
View 2016 edition

Responsibility

The guideline is an initiative of the Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party.  The ICSWP is made up of senior representatives from all the professional bodies involved in stroke care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as policymakers, the voluntary sector and patient voice representatives.   

2023 edition

The next edition of the guideline will be published in April 2023.  It will be a limited update of the fifth edition. The Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party decided in early 2021 to restrict the update to those areas where expert consensus from each specialty identified that evidence and practice have changed, rather than to undertake a comprehensive update of the entire fifth edition.  
The remit of the 2023 edition has been extended beyond England, Wales and Northern Ireland to also cover Scotland and the Republic of Ireland.  The updated edition is being developed in collaboration with the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the Irish National Clinical Programme for Stroke.  A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary guideline development group with representation from all five nations has been tasked with the update.  Click here to download the GDG membership and affiliations.

Plain language summary

An updated plain language summary for people affected by stroke will be published alongside the full guideline.  It will be in an easy-read format.  The 2016 edition can be seen here.

Process

The 2023 edition is being developed following the same process as for the 2016 edition, which was accredited by NICE.  

Peer review and public consultation on draft updated guideline

This is now closed.  Peer review and public consultation ran from 28 November 2022 to 8 January 2023.  The guideline and the plain language summary are scheduled to be published on this website in April 2023.  Please sign up using the button below if you wish to be notified when the guideline and the plain language summary are published.

To be notified when the 2023 guideline and plain language summary are published:

Sign up

Contact

For more information about the project to update the guideline please email strokeguidelineteam@kcl.ac.uk