New statistics show that if you suffer a stroke at home you're likely to live if treated in one of the region's hospitals.

Strokes are Britain's third biggest killer and the most common cause of adult disability in the UK, affecting one in every four men and one in every five women over 45.

According to research compiled by London's Imperial College School of Medicine your chances of surviving a stroke depend largely on where you live.

Its medical team calculated the standard mortality ratios for stroke patients using data collected from every hospital in the country to see whether more or less people than average survived in each centre.

The collated information was then put into a table to show the best and worst performers, with Ashford and St Peter's ranking in the top third of hospitals due to the low mortality rate of its admitted stroke patients.

Dr Maria Cox, head of Ashford Hospital's Chaucer Ward, an acute stroke unit, said the reason why the London Road centre ranked so highly in comparison with neighbouring hospitals such Isleworth's West Middlesex Hospital, is because it provides specialist care.

She said: "The reason why hospitals like Ashford and St Peter's, which have acute stroke units, perform better on the whole is because we have specialist stroke teams who can begin the treatment of stroke patients immediately after they are admitted.

"A stroke unit cares for patients of all ages and ours looks at not only how at how we can treat sufferers, but also how we can minimise the chance of them having a repeat stroke. We have facilities that are working well."

November 30, 2001 11:30