HEADING a football changed life forever for Jonathan Gill.

The father-of-two had been “playing around” with his youngest son, Joe, at a football tournament.

But after 24 hours of feeling slightly unwell, Jonathan was violently sick, the left side of his face “dropped” his speech slurred and he felt a slight numbness in his right arm.

Jonathan’s wife, Julie, dialled 999, and he was taken by ambulance under blue lights to the accident and emergency department at Bournemouth Hospital.

Aged just 45, and with a wife, two children and his own business to take care of, Jonathan had suffered a stroke. Heading the ball had creased an artery in his neck that would not “uncrease”.

Just over two years later, at the launch of a new service to co-ordinate support for the 1,240 people a year in Dorset who suffer a stroke, Jonathan is happy, well and mobile.

But the last two years have been tough and he is keen to spread the message of Bournemouth council’s new Stroke Co-ordination Service, which aims to bring providers of health care, social care and voluntary organisations closer together to improve support for people with strokes.

“When I arrived at A&E, I told them my right side felt tingly. They admitted me and did tests for a couple of days. I went to sleep on the Wednesday night and when I woke on Thursday morning, I couldn’t move.

“I was completely paralysed on my right-hand side.”

The terrifying episode marked the beginning of a six-week period in which medics battled to diagnose the cause of his paralysis.

“The doctors thought I had swelling of the brain and gave me antibiotics to reduce the swelling. They said after four to five weeks that I would walk out as normal, but after six weeks, I was the same.

“I told the consultant I didn’t mind him telling me I’d had a stroke, if that what it was,” said Jonathan.

He was later transferred to Christchurch hospital where an intense three-month period of physiotherapy saw him regain the ability to walk short distances.

Earlier this month, just over two years after being discharged from hospital, he returned to work as a private hire car driver, driving passengers to Gatwick and Heathrow airports in a specially adapted automatic car.

Lynn Branson, the commissioner of Bournemouth council’s new Stroke Co-ordination service, said that unlike other social care services, stroke patients would not have to demonstrate a “substantial or critical” need.

“We want to narrow the health and social care divide so people only experience a good service irrespective of which service is providing it,” said Lynn.

She said patients who accepted referral to the service could call on advice throughout their treatment and beyond on a range of subjects from welfare benefits to care services. The service would also provide practical advice on end of life services, she added, helping people who wanted to remain in their own home during their final days to do so.

Jonathan backed the new co-ordination service.

“You need different advice at different times. After six months, you need different information from the advice you needed after three months.

“If you can call on someone to come and see you, that’s the main thing.”

For more information, call 01202 705440, or email stroketeam@bournemouth.gov.uk.