A report issued by the National Audit Office suggested that stroke care has improved but patients are being delayed in hospital and are receiving inadequate follow-up care.

The report also reveals that even after an additional investment of nearly £60m in stroke services the NHS still remains incompetent to facilitate proper treatment to patients and provide adequate follow-up care.

All hospitals in England are capable of handling strokes have a dedicated stroke unit, claimed the report.

Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) urges that patients suffering a stroke should be immediately taken to these hospitals so that they can get the treatment under a specialist care.

The figures reveal that the number of patients spending more than 90% of their hospital stay on such a unit has witnessed a rise, to 59 per cent in 2008 from 51 per cent in 2006.

However, it discovered that only 17% of stroke patients were in specialist care within four hours of their arrival at hospital in 2008.

NICE guidelines on stroke recommend immediate admission to a specialist stroke unit.

Despite of this 30% of patients were not given an appointment with a specialist within six weeks of discharge from hospital and only 24% of stroke patients were discharged on warfarin.