Written question asked by John P Smith (Labour) on Wednesday, 19 November 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 24 November 2008. It was answered by Baroness Primarolo (Labour) on Wednesday, 26 November 2008 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Thrombosis

Question: (3) what plans he has to introduce a hospital admission code for patients readmitted to hospital with a deep vein thrombosis acquired following a hospital stay;

Answer: Dr. Anita Thomas, the chair of the venous thromboembolism (VTE) Implementation Working Group (IWG) has had discussions with four strategic health authorities since July 2008. We are currently looking at the options that are available for assessing the uptake of the Departments policy of a risk assessment on admission for all patients, and we also keep under review the necessary support for the Exemplar Centres as mentioned in the VTE Expert Working Group's report and the VTE strategy as a whole. A copy of the report has been placed in the Library.The IWG is working closely with Professor Jarman at Imperial College on VTE metrics and how these can be improved so that data collection is as effective and accurate as possible. The cost of VTE to the national health service was estimated at £640 million per year based on 2004 data. We do not have more recent data at present.The annual health check reflects performance against the Government's priorities as set out in vital signs tier 1 and tier2. Vital signs can be found in Operational Plans 2008-09 to 2010-11. A copy of this document has been placed in the Library.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 483 c2131-2W; 238913
Session: 2007-08
Related items: Deposited Paper DEP2008-2898
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Deposited papers
House of Commons
Subjects: Thromboembolism
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk