Hospitals Must Take Up Challenge To Tackle Clots - Charity Welcomes Publication Of Department Of Health Tool, UK

A new tool to help hospital doctors screen for Britain's most
dangerous hospital killer is being rolled out across the country and
has the potential to save many of the 25,000 lives lost to the condition, but
only if the measures are taken up by hospital managers, say Lifeblood: The
Thrombosis Charity.

Hospital-acquired Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is the commonest
cause of hospital mortality, killing many more people in the UK than hospital
-acquired infection. Yet, it is preventable with simple and effective risk
assessment.

Lifeblood welcomed the Department of Health's DVT Risk
Assessment tool, published today for hospitals, which comes eighteen months
after the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson recommended that all
hospital patients should receive a risk assessment for DVT.

The charity called for the Department of Health to mandate DVT
Risk Assessment, a measure which it says could save many of patients whose
deaths are caused by a DVT contracted during their hospital stay.

Lifeblood has been campaigning for improved healthcare to
prevent hospital acquired DVT. However, a report by a group of MPs last year
revealed that your chance of being risk assessed for DVT was a postcode
lottery; only one-third of Trusts were risk assessing all patients on
admission.

Professor Beverley Hunt, Medical Director of Lifeblood said:

"Lifeblood congratulates the Department of Health for the
excellent work it has put into developing this DVT risk assessment tool. This
is great news for all patients and has the potential to prevent thousands of
deaths due to hospital-acquired DVT.

"Many patients are unaware that their greatest risk going into
hospital is developing a DVT. It is vital that all patients are risk assessed
as DVT is often clinically silent and the patient may confuse their symptoms
with less serious conditions.

"The publication of this national tool means that there should
now be no excuses for hospitals not to risk assess patients. However, this
cannot be allowed to sit gathering dust on the shelf while lives are lost to
this neglected killer.

"Lifeblood hopes that the Department of Health will now
mandate DVT risk assessment for all hospital patients, as it has done with
the deep cleaning of hospitals, and urges the NHS to introduce it into
clinical practice."

What is a DVT?


A deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a clot which forms in a deep
vein, usually in the leg. Deep veins are the larger veins that go through the
muscles and transport blood to and from the heart. When a blood clot occurs,
it forms a plug that can interrupt this flow.

Is DVT Serious?

DVT can be a very serious and potentially life-threatening
condition. If the clot breaks off, it can travel in the blood stream, through
the heart and become lodged in the lung. This is known as a pulmonary
embolism (PE). It can happen hours or even days after a DVT. In severe cases
it can be fatal.

Hospital acquired DVT

- DVT causes 10% of all hospital deaths. (Health Select Committee Inquiry into Venous thomboembolism in hospitalised patients, March 2005)

- 52% of patients are at risk from DVT. (Cohen AT et al. A large-scale, global observational study of venous thromboembolism risk and prophylaxis in the acute hospital care setting: the ENDORSE study.Abstract Ndegrees 1827, presented at the XXIst Congress of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Geneva, 8 July 2007)

- DVT has a 30% morbidity rate but the figure drops to between 2-8% if the patient is treated with the appropriate therapy. (Task Force Report: Guidelines on diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism. Torbicki, EJR, et al. Eur Heart Journal 2000; 21, 1301-1336.)

Based on 2005 figures for MRSA and Clostridium difficile




Lifeblood: The Thrombosis Charity