Lifeblood: The Thrombosis Charity

Charity Awards

Preventing deaths from venous thromboembolism

Lifeblood was formed in 2002 in recognition of the scale of the condition venous thromboembolism (VTE) and has been campaigning ever since for the Department of Health to prioritise VTE prevention and to drive this prevention through compulsory risk assessment on admission. The charity is recognised after its lobbying helped ensure the DoH agreed to put VTE risk assessment at the top of its agenda in the 2010 NHS Operating Framework.

A key milestone on the way came in 2005, when a Health Select Committee which had been precipitated by Lifeblood and which took oral and written evidence from the charity, indentified that each year 25,000 people die from VTE contracted in hospital. This is more than the combined total of deaths from breast cancer, Aids and traffic accidents, all the more alarming when most of the deaths are preventable using simple and cost-effective methods.

The challenge was to raise the profile of a relatively technical medical issue with NHS leaders, politicians and the general public. Tactics included submitting Freedom of Information requests, hosting national VTE events, making political representations and producing parliamentary briefings with the all-party parliamentary thrombosis group. The programme was managed and implemented working with Insight Public Affairs, who’s consultancy time was funded by sanofi-aventis. As a result the campaign was undertaken with a budget of less than £80,000 and with costs not exceeding £10,000.

Prof Beverley Hunt
Medical director
PO Box 58
Llanwrda
Carmarthenshire
SA19 0AD
01558 650 222
www.thrombosis-charity.org.uk
Reg no: 1090540

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