Gwent doctor hopes to save 1000 lives in blood clot campaign (From South Wales Argus)

Gwent doctor hopes to save 1000 lives in blood clot campaign

3:10pm Wednesday 16th December 2009 in News By Andy Rutherford - Health correspondent

A GWENT doctor is helping lead an awareness drive aiming to stop patients developing life-threatening blood clots.

The complication in hospitalised patients causes up to 2,000 deaths a year in Wales, and Dr Simon Noble, medical director of thrombosis charity Lifeblood, and honorary palliative care consultant with Aneurin Bevan Health Board, wants patients and NHS staff to be more risk aware.

Lifeblood is teaming up with the ongoing 1,000 Lives campaign, which aims to improve patient safety and healthcare quality, to encourage hospitals to use a simple checklist to ensure all patients are risk assessed for blood clots. Patients in turn, are being encouraged on admission to ask medical staff about risks.

Blood clots can often be clincially 'silent', meaning patients can confuse symptoms with less serious conditions.

Dr Noble said it is "vital" patients ask about the risks.

"If patients know more about the risks of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), its symptoms and what can be done to prevent it, it will help reinforce the issue with healthcare teams and ensure they carry out the correct measures," he said.

"We want every hospital to use the checklist and every patient to ask questions.

Together these two measures will make a real difference to the safety of patients."

Family history of DVT or pulmonary embolism, obesity, and use of oral contraceptives are blood clot risks, and combined with immobility or surgery in hospital, that risk can be increased.

Once risk is assessed, simple treatment - leg stockings, blood-thinning medication, simple exercises - can ensure safe prevention.

Patients are being encouraged to ask about the risk of developing thrombosis during their stay, with and without appropriate prevention, whether anti-blood clot stockings and/or blood thinners are appropriate for them, and whether the hospital has on-site ultrasound facilities for DVT diagnosis.

DVT kills one-in-10 patients who die in hospital

DVT is the immediate cause of death in one-in-10 patients who die in hospital. Just being admitted to hospital with an illness carries a 15 per cent chance of DVT. Surgery increases this to 50 per cent. The most dangerous thrombosis is a pulmonary embolism, a clot that breaks off from deep veins, and travels to block pulmonary, or lung, arteries.