been launched in England to reduce the burden of VTE. In 2009, the Department of Health launched a National VTE Prevention Programme with the goal of reducing avoidable death, disability and chronic ill health from hospital-acquired VTE. At its heart is VTE risk assessment of adult patients upon hospital admission, coupled with appropriate prophylaxis of those at risk. The Department of Health national VTE risk assessment tool was updated and rolled out to all National Health Service (NHS) Service Providers in England simultaneously in 2010 with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommending that: 'All patients, on admission, receive an assessment of VTE and bleeding risk using the clinical risk assessment criteria described in the national tool' \[[@R9],[@R10]\]. To encourage compliance mandatory risk assessment datarates. The differences between the observed and estimated secondary diagnosis and 90-day readmission rates were statistically significant. Mortality with VTE as an underlying cause increased slowly between 2007 and 2010. There was a reduction in VTE-related mortality in 2011, both compared with the estimated rate for 2011 and the actual rates between 2007 and 2010. Indeed, the observed mortality rate for 2011 lay well below the lower 95% CI limit associated with the mortality rate estimation. This reduction was then essentially maintained in 2012.

Based on the results of this analysis, with approximately 15 million hospital admissions across England in 2011, we estimate that around 2000 secondary diagnoses and 1 200 90-day readmissions have been avoided. Similarly, with a population of over 53 million in England in 2011 and 2012,