The prevention of hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism in the United Kingdom

Hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE) remains the number one safety issue in hospitals and is estimated to cause more preventable deaths than the more publicized hospital-acquired infection. There has been a failure of implementation of thromboprophylaxis (TP), mainly because of lack of awareness among health professionals, despite the large number of evidence-based studies available. The situation in the UK is gradually changing because of tireless campaigning by politicians, a charity and key opinion leaders. In response, the Department of Health has issued a national risk assessment tool, and National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for the prevention of VTE in all hospitalised patients, which will be available in August 2009. Although NICE guidelines are only applicable in England, it is to be hoped Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland will also follow. Despite this, the consensus of expert opinion is that TP needs mandating to prevent pockets of non-adherence. Low molecular weight heparins are currently the gold standard pharmacological agent for TP; but are likely to be superseded within the next 5 years by new classes of oral anticoagulants, such as dabigatran and rivaroxiban, which are already licensed for TP after orthopaedic surgery.