Podcast Episode 14: Stroke Prevention.

Hello, my name is Dr. Abdul Sekham and I'm the Stroke Research and Innovation Manager for Stroke Hub Wales, based at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Welcome to this episode of the Leg Club podcast. Today I'm going to discuss Stroke Hub Wales. So stroke is a public health concern, and approximately 7,500 people will have a stroke, stroke, mini stroke, or stroke mimic in Wales, and there are almost 70,000 stroke survivors living in Wales. At Stroke Hub Wales, we aim to bring together Wales stroke experts to use evidence-based care, research, innovation and education to help prevent and reduce the debilitating impact of strokes. So in this presentation, I will discuss Stroke Hub Wales, who we are, some of our achievements and future directions. So our main vision is to achieve a step change in high impact stroke research, innovation and education for the benefit of the health, well-being and prosperity of the people in Wales. We are fortunate to have an infrastructure which includes our clinical research lead, Dr. Shaquille Ahmed, our research lead for stroke, Dr. Jonathan Hewitt, representatives from the various Welsh higher educational institutions and from our NHS health boards. Some of our achievements include Stroke Hub Wales was launched in November 2017. We have created a website and Twitter handle. Our website is www.stroke.wales. Here you can find information about stroke, stroke-related opportunities, events, stroke research leads, get involved in stroke research. There are also pages on the various portfolio studies and also the Welsh University projects and publications, and you can contact us via the web. We assist with grant applications for the various charity bodies such as the Stroke Association and also the BHF and other charity bodies, we're able to help you as well with your NHS IRIS ethics. Stroke Hub Wales also has a public and patient involvement group. This group is very instrumental in getting together and helping various researchers with their applications and also we write a report to submit with your application. We hold several Stroke Symposia, these public health engagement days are well attended and lectures can be anything from the acute pathway to rehabilitation to life after stroke. So please get involved by visiting www.stroke.wales. Should you wish to get involved in stroke research itself, Please register your details at www.stroke.wales/.getinvolved/. And together we can make a difference. So Stroke of Wales has added value. We help with the Welsh Stroke Conference, which is a research meeting where we involve all our stroke researchers nationally and internationally. Again, as mentioned previously, we help our speciality leads in stroke, our clinician, Dr. Shaquille Ahmed, and our research lead, Dr. Jonathan Hewitt. We help with NHS IRS ethical applications, and we also have various tools which can be found on the web. We involved in international initiatives such as the May measurement month where blood pressure is measured. forward the future. So the Research and Innovation Hub, Education Hub and Patient and Public Hub are now all under the umbrella of Stroke Hub Wales. There are various activities under the three hubs. For instance, some of the activities include the Stroke Research Workshop which we aim to be holding in January 2022. The Stroke Leadership Program, the Public and Patient Involvement Hub and Events, Stroke Research Innovation and Education and Care Symposia, Patient Involvement in Research for Stroke Trials, Student AHP Placements and MRes in Stroke, Coordination with Hasu and our Clinical Lead Dr. Shaquille Ahmed, and Under Research and innovation, as mentioned previously, the NHS Iris ethical applications which we will help in, research network and mentorship, support for PhD scholarships, our AHPs stepping into research and student projects. So the future looks bright for Stroke Hub Wales and we would like you to get involved. So for more information please visit our webpage at www.stroke.wales or visit us on our Twitter handle at strokehubwales. Thank you for joining me and goodbye.