On this page:
Our services
Quality Account report
Data Security and Protection Toolkit
Stroke Helpline
Our health information
Driving improvements in treatment and care through stroke research
Gender pay gap report
Compliments and complaints
We pride ourselves on providing high-quality information and delivering an excellent service to all those affected by stroke. Our commitment to you is that:
- We'll listen to you.
- We'll provide you with an excellent level of service.
- We'll provide that service in a timely and friendly manner.
- We'll treat you fairly and sensitively.
On this page, you can read more about our commitment to quality and how we're performing against these standards.
Our services
We monitor and evaluate the performance and impact of our commissioned services against our service standards to ensure we are providing the best possible support. The success of our commissioned services is measured through satisfaction surveys. Last year:
- 97% of our survey respondents felt that they were provided with the information that they needed.
- 93% of respondents felt that this information was easy to understand.
- 99% felt that our staff were skilled, knowledgeable and approachable.
Read the most recent survey results below:
- Satisfaction survey results 2018-19
- Satisfaction survey results 2017-18
- Satisfaction survey results 2019-20
Quality Account report
We're delighted to be sharing the Stroke Association's second Quality Account.
Quality is central to all that we do. It is embedded throughout the direct support we provide, as well as the enabling processes and systems we have in place to ensure support is delivered in a way that's effective, safe and offers a positive experience.
We're committed to monitoring, evaluating and improving quality across our support, for stroke survivors and their families, ourselves and our funders.
Data Security and Protection Toolkit
We're required by our commissioners to complete a Data Security and Protection toolkit on an annual basis. This toolkit assesses us against the National Data Guardian's Data Security Standards.
All providers of NHS commissioned services, which includes us, have been required to have their Data Security and Protection toolkit submission audited. The attached report summarises the results of our audit and confirms we're performing at an acceptable standard.
Stroke Helpline
The performance of the Stroke Helpline is measured against our service standards to ensure that we're providing an excellent service.
- This year, we answered almost 19,500 enquiries. This was an increase of 7% compared with last year.
- Last year, between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019, we answered 79% calls received during opening hours.
Read more about our Stroke Helpline quality and performance
Our health information
We are committed to providing high-quality information to people affected by stroke, health professionals and other members of the public.
Driving improvements in treatment and care through stroke research
Since 1991, the Stroke Association has spent more than £56 million supporting vital stroke research. This has improved care and treatment for stroke along the whole patient journey including emergency treatment, care in the community, and stopping stroke from happening.
Find out more about our research successes.
Gender pay gap report
Our 2023 Gender Pay Gap report looks very different to previous years. In the last 12 months, we published ‘Our approach to solving inequity in stroke’. This new approach helps us to understand the barriers to equality, diversity, and inclusion in our charity. It also empowers us to take actions that will address those barriers. Our approach to solving inequity in stroke makes clear what actions we’ve committed to, to create a more equitable Stroke Association for our staff, volunteers, and everyone affected by stroke.
We will now be including the work we’re doing to address our gender pay gap in our evaluation of overall progress against solving inequity in stroke. Working in this way will mean we can address the many different barriers that impact inclusion and diversity, rather than a single issue. Because people can experience multiple forms of disadvantage and inequity, we need to take these into account if we’re going to make a difference. This will make it easier for us to identify issues and opportunities and to experiment to find impactful solutions, and scale what we know works.
Our 2023 gender pay gap
Our mean gender pay gap is 17.5%. This is an increase of 0.8% since 2022.
Our median gender pay gap is 21.9%. This is an increase of 0.9% since 2022.
Number and percentage of men and women in each pay quarter:
| 2023 | A. Lower | B. Lower middle | C. Upper middle | D. Upper | No. (%) of Employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 167 (90.3%) | 166 (90.2%) | 155 (83.8%) | 128 (69.6%) | 616 (83.5%) |
| Male | 18 (9.7%) | 18 (9.8%) | 30 (16.2%) | 56 (30.4%) | 122 (16.5%) |
| Grand total | 185 (100%) | 184 (100%) | 185 (100%) | 184 (100%) | 738 (100%) |
This year, we’re publishing bonus pay data for the first time. This isn’t because we’ve introduced bonus pay, but because we made a one-off cost of living payment to all staff and want to be transparent about this. Both our mean and median bonus gender pay gap is 0%.
Our gender pay gap is reflective of the challenges we continue to experience at the Stroke Association. While we do not have an equal pay issue, we do see a significant underrepresentation of men in the lower and lower middle pay quartiles. The increase in representation of men in upper quartile roles, while still significantly lower than women in those roles, has a big impact on our gender pay gap.
We have several initiatives aimed at improving the inclusion and experience of women in our charity, including targeted leadership development, enhanced parental pay, and flexible working options. But these initiatives are not reducing our gender pay gap. To reduce our gender pay gap, we also need to ensure that men are both attracted to, and feel a sense of belonging in, more junior roles. In future we will be using a test and learn approach and applying an intersectional lens to our policies and practices, to tackle our gender pay gap.
We are committed to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace for all our people. In future, we will be reporting in more detail, on the actions we are taking and the impact we’re achieving, in line with ‘Our approach to solving inequity in stroke’.
You can also view our Gender Pay Gap reports from previous years here:
- 2017 Gender Pay Gap Report
- 2018 Gender Pay Gap Report
- 2019 Gender Pay Gap Report
- 2021 Gender Pay Gap Report
- 2022 Gender Pay Gap Report
Compliments and complaints
We welcome feedback and ensure we learn from complaints. Download a summary of our compliments and complaints.
If you need to raise a concern or provide us with suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us.