Inpatient stroke rehabilitation is near-universal across Europe, but community and telerehabilitation provision lags well behind, survey finds

A cross-sectional survey, conducted by a European physical and rehabilitation medicine working group with an 81% response rate across 30 European countries, examined how post-stroke rehabilitation services are organised and delivered Audit/Data. Inpatient stroke rehabilitation was available in all responding countries, and stroke-unit rehabilitation in 90%. Early supported discharge (53%), community-based rehabilitation (63%) and telerehabilitation (57%) were markedly less consistently available. Countries that joined the survey body’s parent organisation more recently had significantly lower rates of early supported discharge and community-based care than longer-standing members.

This is an international benchmarking survey rather than a study of outcomes, and it does not itself indicate how any single country’s stroke pathway compares against the others surveyed.

The consistent pattern — near-universal inpatient capacity set against markedly less consistent community and technology-supported provision — is a useful international comparator for evaluating whether any national stroke pathway’s community and early-supported-discharge capacity has kept pace with its acute capacity, rather than lagging behind it as this survey finds is common across Europe.