Experience Based Co-design – Thrombolysis pathway
About this project:
As part of our involvement with the Thrombolysis in Acute Stroke Collaboration (TASC) initiative, we've started an experience-based co-design project. We are looking to optimise our thrombolysis pathway and improve door-to-needle times for stroke patients.
The Stroke team at University Hospitals Dorset would like to understand the experience of people who are given clot-busting drugs (thrombolysis) as treatment for stroke. We will be exploring both staff experience of supporting this pathway and the experiences of people with stroke and their families. This insight will be vital in helping us identify what’s working well and where improvements can be made.
Contact details for the project team:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Stroke Quality & Performance Manager
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Stroke Nurse Consultant.
Project Time line
Summer/Autumn 2025
Step 1: Recruitment to our project:
Using our local/national stroke database we identified 89 people who were treated with thrombolysis at Bournemouth Hospital between 1st January 2025 and July 2025.
We asked for people who would be willing to share their experience of this care with us to understand how and where we could improve.
Step 2: Staff feedback
We circulated a survey to different staff members who have involvement in the treatment of people with thrombolysis. This included a number of different roles including:
- doctors and nurses involved in early assessment and decision making
- staff involved in performing brain scans
- stroke ward staff
- consultants from the stroke teams
- consultants from other teams (e.g. the emergency department)
- both night and daytime staff
The survey asked about their experience of providing treatment, what they felt worked well, where they felt improvements could be made and perceptions of care experience for people receiving thrombolysis treatment.
Winter 2025/26
Step 3: We met with three people who had received thrombolysis treatment and consented to sharing their personal experience.
Meetings with each person took place with the stroke nurse consultant and were recorded by a member of the communications team.
We used an open structure to the conversations to allow people to talk and share their experience with visual prompts to make different steps in the treatment pathway. At intervals we paused to feedback what we had heard from the conversation to check understanding and provide opportunity for further detail/clarification if needed.
Each meeting took approximately 1 hour.
Step 4. The project team reviewed the recorded conversations and highlighted key themes from the combined discussions. Examples of interviews and key themes are shared below (with participants permission).
Spring 2026 – coming up soon!
5. Sharing key themes with team
6. Sharing events with patients and staff
