'Dedicated and passionate' consultant awarded MBE for services to stroke care

A doctor described by his colleagues as passionate, dedicated and a champion for stroke services in Wales has been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours List 2024.

Dr Hamsaraj Shetty, who has worked a consultant physician at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff for almost three decades, said it was “a great honour” to be recognised for his services to stroke care.

The experienced clinician has played a significant role in developing stroke care and treatment in Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, and has been described as an advocate and ambassador for multidisciplinary working.

He has won several awards for his work, including the inaugural Welsh Stroke Excellence Award at the Welsh Stroke Conference 2018 for his commitment and dedication to stroke services within the Health Board.

He said: “It is a great honour to be awarded an MBE. In stroke medicine we work as a team, so this honour also goes to the colleagues I’ve had the privilege of working with over the years. I am very grateful for their wholehearted support throughout my career.”

Dr Shetty said stroke medicine had come a very long way in Cardiff, and indeed across Wales, since the start of his career.

“There has been a revolution in the management of stroke patients,” he added. “Our 30-day mortality rate for acute stroke patients in Cardiff and Vale was at around 28% in 1998, and about four or five years ago that figure was down to 11%.

“One of the reasons for this decrease, I believe, was bringing stroke patients together onto one ward in the acute stroke unit in 2007. That helped us give a more dedicated treatment.

“There have, of course, been great improvements in stroke treatment including the use of thrombolytic drugs and endovascular treatment where you can take the clot out which has actually cured some patients completely.”

After graduating from Mysore Medical College in India, Dr Shetty trained as a lecturer in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics and became a senior registrar in general medicine in Cardiff.

After working as a consultant physician in Southmead Hospital in Bristol for a short period, he came back to the Welsh capital in 1995 to work at the University Hospital of Wales. He was instrumental in leading the developments of stroke services within Cardiff and Vale and across Wales through the Welsh Association of Stroke Physicians which he initiated in 1998.

He was also a member of the Welsh Government’s Stroke Implementation Group until 2014, a member of the Service Development and Quality Committee of the British Association of Stroke Physicians between 2006 and 2009, and a founding member of the UK Stroke Forum National Committee.

Dr Shetty was the Royal College of Physicians’ Regional Advisor for Stroke Medicine until 2015, and has played a significant part in a number of key multicentre stroke trials. In 2007 he became the first ever non-European President of the Cardiff Medical Society in its 137-year history.

Despite retiring temporarily in 2015, Dr Shetty decided to return to the profession just three months later. “I think I’m probably the oldest doctor in Wales,” joked the 71-year-old.

“I realised that all the experience I’d gained would be going to waste if I retired and sat at home. I thought I’d be of much more use to the patients and the community if I returned to work. I really enjoy my job as I work with some wonderful people. They are all so dedicated.”

Cardiff and Vale UHB’s CEO, Suzanne Rankin, and Chair Charles ‘Jan’ Janczewski, said: “We are incredibly proud of Dr Shetty for his dedicated work in supporting stroke patients across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan and Wales. This is a well-deserved achievement and testament to his contributions to the NHS.  

“Dr Shetty has spent his career championing stroke services in Wales and has been instrumental in developing services in Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and across Wales. On behalf of the Health Board, we extend our congratulations to him.”