THE CHESTERFIELD Royal Hospital has been highlighted for the innovative way it deals with preventing potentially deadly blood clots.
Venous Thromboembolism, or VTE for short, is a blood clot that can affect people when they are immobile for long periods of time caused by sluggish circulation and changes in blood composition.
An estimated 25,000 people die from hospital acquired blood clots in England each year, despite being largely preventable, and the Royal has been awarded a Special Commendation Certificate by Lifeblood: The Thrombosis Charity.
Anna Braithwaite is the Royal’s principal pharmacist and VTE prevention lead, she said: “More and more people are becoming aware of the dangers of blood clots and how they can affect patients and for us it’s about what we can do to reduce that risk.
“We’ve used a wide range of tools at our disposal that includes working with staff at ward level to ensure that prevention techniques such as pressure stockings are given to all patients who require a hospital stay. We’ve also utilised social media by producing a light-hearted YouTube video called ‘Stop the Clot’ that has received good feedback and more than 1,000 views.
“We have produced a lot of innovative patient information including leaflets, posters and roller banners that we have used for awareness days. We’ve also given away balloons and stickers for families and spoken to visitors face to face to answer their questions, tell them what we’re doing and what they can do to prevent it from becoming a problem for them.”
It’s not the first accolade the Trust has received in preventing VTE. In 2010 it was named an Exemplar Centre for VTE, one of the first hospitals in the country to earn the title. In 2011 Anna was given a prevention award by Lifeblood, one of only six given out at the inaugural VTE Prevention Awards, in recognition of her exemplary leadership in preventing hospital acquired VTE.
Jan Maly is Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Thrombosis Group, she said: “The expert panel of judges felt that the Trust demonstrated an exceptional level of leadership and innovation and that the strategy’s wider adoption throughout the NHS could lead to significant improvements in VTE prevention nationwide.”
Anna added: “It’s wonderful for this hospital to be recognised as leaders in VTE prevention. Latest figures show that it kills more people than road traffic accidents, breast cancer and AIDS combined so to get this right is fantastic news for our patients.”
To see our YouTube video then you can follow this link…