254 An Audit of the Frequency of Early Swallow Screens Performed in Patients Diagnosed with a Stroke

Abstract Background The National Stroke Audit 2015 showed that Ireland had made great advances in stroke care but one notable area of deficiency was in access to early swallow screening (within 4 hours). An early swallow screen is recommended by the Royal College of Physicians Stroke Guidelines (2016) to minimise the risk of aspiration pneumonia. The National Guideline for Swallow Screening in Stroke was released in May 2017 and outlines the need to have staff who are trained in swallow screening available 24/7. This audit aimed to evaluate the percentage of stroke patients in our hospital who received a documented swallow screen within 4 hours of admission. Methods Data relating to swallow screens/assessments and the time in which they were performed was extracted from our hospital’s HIPE database. The sample size included all confirmed strokes seen by the stroke service in our hospital in the first 6 months of 2018 (1/1/2018- 30/06/2018 inclusive). This amounted to 78 patients. Results In our hospital >90% of patients diagnosed with stroke get admitted to our stroke unit. Of the 78 patients, 38 (48.1%) had a documented swallow screen/assessment during admission, 27 did not have a documented swallow screen/assessment (34.2%) and for 14 patients (17.7%) it was unclear whether they had one during admission. Of the 38 patients who had documented swallow screens/assessments during admission 5 (13.2%) of these occurred within 4 hours of admission. Conclusion In summary while our hospital is succeeding in getting the vast majority of diagnosed strokes into our stroke unit we are not currently meeting the UK target for early swallow screening. We aim to roll out an education and training programme targeting nurses and doctors in our stroke unit regarding early swallow screening and re-audit this in 6-12 month’s time.