Thanks to an AI tool, stroke patients in England are getting treatment more than an hour earlier.

A study published in The Lancet Digital Health shows around 15,000 patients directly benefitted from having their scans reviewed by the tech.

The AI tool helps doctors to spot clots in minutes, speeding up clinical decision making and helping get patients rushed to specialist stroke centres faster. This means patients are more likely to be able to get a thrombectomy more quickly.

Hospitals using the Brainomix 360 Stroke imaging tool saw thrombectomy rates at participating sites double (from 2.3 per cent to 4.6 per cent), compared with smaller increases at hospitals not using the technology (1.6 per cent to 2.6 per cent).

Every 20-minute delay in thrombectomy cuts the chance of full recovery by around 1%

The tool has been rolled out to over 70 hospitals.

Dr David Hargroves, NHS national clinical director for stroke and co-author of the study said: “This landmark study confirms what we have already been seeing in daily practice: that stroke AI imaging is helping us deliver faster decision-making and better care for our patients.

“This technology supports clinicians to make rapid treatment decisions, which means more patients can receive life- and disability-saving treatments in time – giving them a better chance of returning to independent living.

“This publication provides robust, real-world evidence of the impact of AI in stroke care and shows why the NHS moved quickly to roll this technology out nationwide.”