This is the current release of the guideline.

1. Identification of required competencies and training for staff responsible for anticoagulant care.
2. Regular monitoring of safety indicators for inpatient and outpatient/community anticoagulant services with reporting to appropriate clinical governance committees and risk management.
3. Improved guidelines for loading doses and management of anticoagulation for dental surgery, surgery, cardioversion and endoscopy.
4. Promotion of the use of computer dosing software for decision support and audit.
5. Potential greater use of nurses and pharmacists to provide anticoagulant care, especially for hospital inpatients and for improving links between inpatient and outpatient services.
6. Improved arrangements and communication when patients are discharged from hospital, including transfer of duty of care directly to general practitioner.
7. Improved safety checks when interacting medicines are prescribed.
8. Improved support and monitoring of patients in the first 3 months of warfarin therapy.
9. Clarification of safety checks for general practitioner prescribing of repeat prescriptions of anticoagulant drugs and for the pharmacy supplying the anticoagulant drugs.
10. Revision of design and content of the patient held record.
11. Dosing regimens should be consistent within anticoagulant services.
12. Local systems should be implemented to minimise the potential for confusion relating to anticoagulant dose and strength of tablets.
13. Review of procedures for supply and administration of anticoagulant drugs in care homes.
14. Improvement of the design of forms/software for prescribing, monitoring and administering anticoagulants.
15. Improvement of quality assurance (QA) procedures for near-patient testing equipment.

Readers are referred to the original guideline document for a list of risks identified from the National Patient Safety Agency Risk Assessment, which served as a basis for these recommendations.

None provided

Not applicable: The guideline was not adapted from another source.

2007 Jan

British Committee for Standards in Haematology - Professional Association
National Patient Safety Agency - National Government Agency [Non-U.S.]

British Committee for Standards in Haematology

Not stated

Authors: T. P. Baglin, Addenbrooke's NHS Trust, Cambridge; D. Cousins, National Patient Safety Agency; D. M. Keeling, Oxford Haemophilia Centre and Thrombosis Unit, Churchill Hospital, Oxford; D. J. Perry, Addenbrooke's NHS Trust, Cambridge; H. G. Watson, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, UK

None of the authors has declared a conflict of interest.

This is the current release of the guideline.

None available

This NGC summary was completed by ECRI Institute on May 21, 2008.