Stroke patients in Bradford get the best care in West Yorkshire, a report reveals.

But the National Sentinel Audit for Stroke 2004 published yesterday also showed Airedale NHS Trust was below the national average.

The audit assessed UK hospitals on 12 key indicators from April to June 2004.

These included: Screening for swallowing disorders less than 24 hours after admission; emergency brain scanning within 24 hours of a stroke and numbers given aspirin within 48 hours of a stroke - which can sometimes reduce mortality and disability.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs St Luke's Hospital and Bradford Royal Infirmary, topped the West Yorkshire table while Airedale NHS Trust was one of the county's worst performers.

Jackie Hansford, Bradford Teaching Hospitals manager for stroke services, said improvements were underway to boost performance further.

We have a big target to meet but the way we are reorganising things should address the parts of the audit where we did not do so well," she said.

"When we did the audit we did not have a proper acute bed area. After the re-configuration there will be four acute beds at BRI for stroke patients. We have rehabilitation beds at St Luke's, which is what scored so highly on the audit."

Bradford scored above average on all but two indicators and the audit revealed all stroke patients were on antithrombotic therapy by the time they were discharged.

But at Airedale just four per cent of patients had had rehabilitation goals agreed by a multi-disciplinary team and just 20 per cent had received physiotherapy assessment within 24 hours of admission.

An Airedale NHS Trust spokesman said its purpose-built unit opened in October, 2003 "to deliver a vital service for local patients."

"The philosophy of the unit is to give our patients specialist care with an expert team and, although the data for some of the results was not available on the unit at the time, we have since made changes to make sure that the information is available to accurately reflect the high level of care and professional practice on the unit," he said.

"Importantly, in regular staff audits the stroke unit continually receives the highest praise from patients and families."

Dr Tony Rudd, chairman of the Intercollegiate Stroke Network, said: "For those hospitals that have not made major improvements, the audit will help identify areas for change and gives a very clear strategy for building first-class stroke services. To support this, we need Government to make stroke a major priority."

Nationally, the audit revealed provision of stroke unit care has risen considerably since the first audit in 1998 - but it showed patients were still at the mercy of a postcode lottery.