The National Venous Thromboembolism Prevention Programme in England

Venous thromboembolism is one of the commonest causes of avoidable death in our hospitals. In 2005 the Government was forthright in its observation that “there is no systematic approach to identifying and treating those patients at risk from VTE in hospitals and that there is significant room for improvement”. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has described VTE as “a significant international patient safety issue”. Under Sir Liam’s leadership over the last four years good progress has been made throughout the NHS and across the wider healthcare sector to reduce avoidable death and long-term illness and disability from VTE. We now have in place the key elements of a comprehensive National VTE Prevention Programme needed to support the implementation of Government policy that every adult patient undergoes an assessment of their individual risk for VTE on admission to hospital with appropriate prophylaxis based on national guidance as part of a systematic and auditable process. Please access the documents and websites that make up the National VTE Prevention Programme below.