What you can expect from us
Our Stroke Helpline offers confidential information, guidance and support to anyone affected by stroke. All enquiries are answered by professional, trained staff and volunteers, who have an understanding of stroke and how it changes lives.
When you contact us, you can expect that you will be listened to and treated as an individual, with respect and courtesy. We will give balanced, up-to-date information, and if we don't know the answer to your question, we'll research it or signpost you to people who can help.
Our service standards
We aim to provide every person who contacts our Stroke Helpline with excellent service and high-quality support and information in a timely manner. We have a number of service standards, and we monitor and evaluate our performance against these.
Overall service performance: respond to an increased number of enquiries, as projected.
In the year 2018/19 we answered almost 19,500 enquiries. This was an increase of 7% compared with the previous year.
Answer 80% of calls made to the helpline during opening hours.
Between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019 we answered 79% calls received during opening hours.
Answer 80% of written enquiries within three working days and 100% within 5 working days.
Between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019 we answered 99.7% within 5 working days. 95% of these were answered within 3 working days.
We aim to achieve not less than 95% satisfaction rate from people who have used our service.
We achieved an overall satisfaction rate of 91% based on combined results from our customer satisfaction survey and a shorter user feedback survey that runs throughout the year. This was a 3% improvement on the previous year's satisfaction rate.
Our information
We provide information about stroke, the effects of stroke and life after stroke in a range of accessible formats. Read how we produce our information.
Service quality
To check the quality and consistency of our service, and for learning and development purposes, occasionally our staff and volunteers will listen in to calls and read written enquiries. We also sometimes record calls for this purpose.
Please feel free to tell us not to if you are not comfortable with this. All staff and volunteers are bound by our strict confidentiality policy. For further information, see our terms and conditions.
We are community members of the Helplines Partnership.
Service user comments
I was happy with the response, it was very helpful and reassuring during a difficult time. I appreciate the work done by all in offering the advice, support and information.
Thank you so much for the speedy reply Your kind and knowledgeable response to my telephone call this morning has already helped me to be more positive in dealing with this traumatic event.
You are amazing, thank you so much for your time and really spot on research it is really appreciated.
Feedback
We are always thinking about ways to improve our service, to make sure we reach as many people as possible and can effectively meet the needs of people affected by stroke. If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, please email us at helpline@stroke.org.uk.