Westminster Hall 12th June 2025
I wanted to use my time today to talk about strokes.
I, like millions of people across the country, have a personal account of dealing with this life-altering medical condition.
It was about 11am on the 13th August 2013 that I received a message from a relative. “I think your Dad’s been in a crash – the cars all smashed up and doors wide open parked outside the house”. I was at work in Cambridge that morning and my parent’s house was back home in Norfolk. Not being able to reach my Dad, I managed to get message to my sister to go round. She found my Dad in bed.
Unbeknown to any of us and unbeknown to him, he’d been having a stroke all morning. Getting ready for work that morning he had struggled to put his coat on, he forgot to pick up his car keys and initially left the house without locking the door – my mother didn’t think too much of it, he then somehow managed to drive her to work, and then drove himself to his engineering factory just a bit further down the road, when he got to work they sent him home – they thought he was drunk. On the way home he crashed into a parked lorry. Dazed and confused and in the midst of his stroke he drove home and took himself to bed thinking he had a cold.
If he hadn’t left the car abandoned outside the house, and if that relative hadn’t raised the alarm, he’d have been in bed for the rest of the day alone and he likely wouldn’t have survived. As it turned out, we were able to get him to hospital, and we managed to have 10 further years with my Dad.
My Dad was 55 when he had his stroke, he was fit and healthy, he worked full time, and he showed no warning signs…. and them wham. Out of nowhere, he had a full-on major stroke.
As a family, we didn’t know much about strokes at all – I had no idea they came in all shapes and sizes, they have varying levels of severity. The recovery too is variable.
Strokes directly affect 100,000 people each and every year.
Approximately 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women aged 45 can expect to have a stroke if they live to 85. Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in the UK and a leading cause of disability.
Tragically, 9 out of 10 strokes are preventable through early detection and management of conditions like high blood pressure.
Last month was Stroke Awareness Month – an important opportunity to highlight how to spot a stroke.
I’d urge members to look at the F.A.S.T method to recognise the symptoms.
Is the FACE drooping? Does one side of the face feel numb?
Is the ARM weak? Can the person raise both arms?
Is SPEECH difficult? Ask a person to repeat a simple phrase? Check to see if speech is slurred or strange
And TIME – if you observe these symptoms, it’s time to call 999.
I welcome the Government has committed to a 25% reduction in deaths from Cardio Vascular Disease and stroke by 2035. But without urgent action on stroke, this goal will not be met.
The plan is needed to tackle three key factors: Early Detection, Treatment, and Prevention.
There are 2,831 stroke survivors in my South West Norfolk constituency alone, all working to rebuild their lives. The prevalence of stroke in my constituency is 473, with 1 being the lowest prevalence, and 543 being the highest prevalence amongst the English constituencies, so you can see it’s a significant problem in my community.
Whilst I have the opportunity to do so – I would also like to note and put on record the incredible work the Stroke Association and its members do to support stroke survivors and their families whether that be through working with professionals, jobs and careers, and community groups.
