Website of the Department of Health

Report of the independent expert working group on the prevention of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in hospitalised patients

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a set of complications that includes blood clots in veins that can break off. In England around 25,000 people a year die from VTE in hospitals alone.

In March 2005 the Health Select Committee reported on the prevention of VTE in hospitalised patients.  In their published response in July 2005, the Government recognised that there was no systematic approach to identifying those patients at risk from VTE in hospitals and that there was significant room for improvement.  The deaths of 25,000 people a year from VTE was a serious issue on which the Government needed to take rapid and comprehensive action.  

Ministers asked that a VTE expert group be set up and report to CMO with recommendations by the summer of 2006.  The CMO appointed a membership which ensured all the relevant professions were represented as well key organisations with an interest in VTE.

The group looked at how current best practice and guidance could be promoted and implemented. He received the report on 17 July 2006 and it contained the group’s findings and recommendations.

The report recommends that every hospital patient should have their own risk assessment for VTE that will improve patient safety and help save thousands of lives each year.

The CMO has established an implementation working group which will develop a national risk assessment tool, and will also provide leadership both within the NHS and the wider healthcare sector in order to assess what needs to be done to ensure that a VTE risk assessment of every patient on admission to hospital becomes a reality.

Sir Muir Gray, Director for the National electronic Library for Health, has advised that “Connecting for Health” is charged with responsibility for making a VTE tool part of the national library of tools to be given to all suppliers.  The tool would be the VTE risk assessment recommended by the expert group, and which would be developed by the implementation working group.

• Report of the independent expert working group on the prevention of venous thromboembolism in hospitalised patients
• Letter announcing recommendations of the expert working group on the prevention of VTE