Members' Business — S6M-15065 Roz McCall: Increasing Stroke Awareness

That the Parliament notes reports that nearly 11,000 people in Scotland have a stroke every year, including in the Mid Scotland and Fife region; further notes the belief that raising public awareness of stroke signs and the need for immediate action is essential to improving health outcomes for stroke survivors; understands that the FAST (Face, Arms, Speech, Time) stroke awareness campaign undertaken by Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland, which launched on World Stroke Day on 29 October 2024, is aimed at increasing awareness among the public of the need for urgent medical attention for stroke; further understands the importance of repetition in any public health campaign; regrets that there has been no sustained government-backed campaign in Scotland, it understands, since before the COVID-19 pandemic; notes the calls from campaign groups to review public health messaging surrounding awareness of stroke symptoms, including the work of the BE-FAST (Balance, Eyes, Face, Arms, Speech, Time) campaign, which some academic research suggests detects 95.6% of strokes and is the acronym currently favoured by Harvard Medical School and Yale School of Medicine; notes the calls on the Scottish Government to work with Public Health Scotland and NHS boards to trial BE-FAST, in order to assess its effectiveness using data, which, it considers, would allow for informed decisions to be taken regarding the efficacy of current public health messaging, and further notes the hope that all stroke awareness campaigns can continue to increase awareness of the need for urgent medical attention should a patient present with any symptoms associated with stroke.