Only 6.4% of stroke patients in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received the recommended amount of rehabilitation between January and March 2025, according to the latest figures from a national audit. The shortfall means most patients did not get the therapy intended to support their recovery.

The figure comes from the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP), which uses hospital data from the three nations. It fell from 7.5% in October to December 2024. Scotland is not covered by the audit.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines recommend three hours of rehabilitation a day, at least five days a week. This includes physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, and occupational therapy. The recommendation applies whether patients remain in hospital or continue rehabilitation at home.

Rehabilitation Falls Below the Target

In the first quarter of 2025, patients received an average of 40 minutes of therapy, six minutes less than in the previous quarter. The audit recorded amounts ranging from 15.2 minutes to a maximum of 57.3 minutes.

Stroke can leave survivors struggling to walk, talk or swallow. Almost 100,000 people in the UK have a stroke each year, according to the Stroke Association. The charity describes stroke as the country's largest cause of complex disability. It has also warned that annual cases could rise to 115,483 by 2030, with an ageing population and more people living with high blood pressure or diabetes among the factors cited.

The audit found that 68% of patients received continuing rehabilitation support after leaving hospital. That leaves almost a third without such support recorded in the figures, although the audit does not say what happened in each individual case.

The Stroke Association estimates stroke costs the UK £25.7 billion ($34.4 billion) a year. It says £13.7 billion ($18.3 billion) is spent on social care, while wider societal costs, including lost work and unpaid caring, account for £6.7 billion ($8.9 billion). A further £2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) is attributed to welfare benefits and income tax not collected when people have to stop working.

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Response From Government

The charity's chief executive, Juliet Bouverie, said the figures showed that many survivors were not receiving adequate support during the early days after a stroke or in the months and years that follow.

'The brain injury caused by stroke can change every aspect of a person's life in an instant and last for a lifetime,' Bouverie said. She said health and care services too often focused on the emergency rather than the support people need afterwards.

The Department of Health and Social Care did not address the rehabilitation figures directly. A spokesperson said the NHS was working to provide urgent treatment and longer-term care.

'Hundreds of people every day suffer a stroke, and the NHS is working hard to get them the rapid support and long-term rehabilitation they will often require,' the spokesperson said.

The department also pointed to the government's 10-year health plan, which pledged to reduce premature deaths from heart disease and stroke by a quarter within a decade. It said a cardiovascular disease modern service framework, published in July, aimed to accelerate progress.

The spokesperson added that the NHS was working to increase the delivery of thrombolysis and thrombectomy to improve outcomes after stroke. These interventions form part of acute stroke care. The audit, meanwhile, records a separate concern: how much rehabilitation patients receive as they begin their recovery.

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