Our Clinical Leads reflect on their first months in post

In late 2024, we refreshed our clinical leadership and appointed two new leads in stroke care, to work alongside Chris Hyde in community, and supporting our Clinical Director Dr Krishnamoorthy.

Rachael Collins is the network’s Inpatient Stroke Rehabilitation Clinical Lead and commenced November 2024. She qualified as an Occupational Therapist in 2001 and has worked in stroke and brain injury rehabilitation ever since. For the last four years she has been an Advanced Clinical Practitioner in the Salford Royal Stroke Service, embedded within the medical team but working across the AHP stroke workforce.

Rachael has enjoyed stepping into the network leadership role which has kept her busy keeping up with a wide portfolio of projects whilst balancing her clinical workload. Her immediate focus has been to continue supporting our cardiorespiratory rehabilitation project by establishing a risk screening tool and developing staff training in collaboration with local leisure and health sector groups. She is now integral in supporting a longstanding initiative to improve the quality of care and equity of access to spasticity management across the region.

Dr Jungim Kwon (known as J) is our Acute Stroke Clinical Lead and started in her role in December 2024. She qualified as a neurologist in South Korea and subspecialised in stroke, and is the lead for mechanical thrombectomy and Patient Pass referral system roll out in Salford Royal Stroke Service.

J is currently supporting extension of CT Perfusion and MR imaging across Greater Manchester to ensure better alignment with the National Clinical Guideline for Stroke (2023). The local thrombectomy pathway was also recently reviewed including in person observations of team behaviour at each of the three hyper acute sites. There was found to be overall excellent performance, but with a scope for further improvement which J will help facilitate (with her two hats on!).

Rachael and J have now conducted site visits to most of the region’s stroke units. This has built relationships with other teams and helped them gain a deeper appreciation of the challenges faced by the other stroke centres, especially the non-hyper acute units.

Their visits highlighted that even though the region’s stroke pathway and front door services are exemplary, there is still work to be done to increase clinician levels and reduce staff turnover to ensure sustainable services across the patch. The Leads were struck by how dedicated and passionate the stroke unit teams were and how hard they worked to try and deliver the best care, often in challenging circumstances.

Rachael noted: “Whilst the outstanding work already completed by the network is evident, I have observed the benefits and value that the our stroke and neuro teams gain from being part of the network and the service improvement projects they engage with”. 

J commented: “It has been an exciting and enjoyable journey for me since I started, with a steep learning curve! I am looking forward to continuing the work to continuously improve stroke care for our patients.”