The hospital will receive a prestigious World Stroke Organization Angels Gold Status Award for meeting the highest standards in stroke treatment and care.

Mr Stapleton, 59, experienced that treatment first-hand after he suffered a stroke on March 4 and spent two months in Orange Hospital.

"The staff were excellent, the care they gave me was great. From the ambulance officers to the doctors and the nurses, all the staff," he said.

"I'm a locksmith, and I was out fixing a lady's lock and felt perfectly fine. Then the right side of my body just stopped working. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I fell down.

"It was scary, but I knew I needed to let the healthcare staff do what they needed to."

He said he started rehabilitation quickly and the fine motor-skills exercises he was told to do worked.

"Because my work involves a lot of tiny pins and locks, I practiced on those all the time as well and that really helped as well," Mr Stapleton said.

"The bleed was on the left side of my brain so it affected the right side of my body, but I'm left handed, so I guess I was lucky in a way in that sense.

"I'm still not quite 100 per cent yet but I'm getting there, I'm hoping I will completely get back to how I was."

Mr Stapleton can drive to work again now and he is happy with his progress.

"Where I am now, it's certainly much better than the alternative," he said.

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The World Stroke Organization Angels Gold Status Awards were open to regional hospitals participating in the NSW Realising Improvement in StrokE program (RISE).

Training, protocol and the performance of the hospital's stroke unit were assessed as part of the Angels initiative.

That included meeting a target of restoring blood-flow to more than half of the eligible patients within an hour of their hospital arrival.

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