Patients dying 'unnecessarily' from blood clots

Tuesday, 8 March 2005 1:16 PM

Over 25,000 patients a year are dying from largely preventable blood clots, according to a report from MPs.

The House of Commons Health Select Committee said the fatal clots, or venous thromboembolisms (VTEs) can be prevented using cheap drugs.

But it warned that medical staff are "simply not aware of the extent" of the problem and expressed concern that doctors will not receive clear prevention guidelines until May 2007.

It said that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance does not do enough to protect patients and has called for all hospital patients to be assessed for risk and given preventive therapy if required.

"Considering the sheer numbers of people who die from the condition I find it shocking that this has been allowed to go unchecked for so long," said committee chairman David Hinchliffe.

"The guidelines which the NHS plan to introduce in May 2007 are too late, too narrow in scope and will not go far enough to prevent more unnecessary deaths."

Clots in the leg veins, called deep vein thromboses (DVTs) can break off and lodge in the small vessels in the lung, causing a pulmonary embolism, which is fatal in about a third of cases without treatment.

Pulmonary embolism following DVT kills more people than breast cancer, Aids and traffic accidents combined each year, and is responsible for 25 times more deaths than the antibiotic-resistant superbug MRSA.

Shadow Health Minister Chris Grayling said that the Government had delayed too long before tackling the problem.

Mr Grayling said: "Urgent action is required to stop as many preventable deaths as possible. It is unacceptable that the Government appears to have kicked the issue into the long grass, and is planning to wait years before tackling the problem.

"The Government is spending huge amounts on the NHS, but patients are not getting the treatments they need. It's about time they stopped spending money on bureaucracy, and instead prioritised spending on things we really need.".

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