MORE than 10,000 lives could be saved each year under plans to screen everybody going into hospital for blood clots, a watchdog announced yesterday.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published guidance setting out how patients should be assessed for the clots, which kill an estimated 25,000 people admitted to wards in England each year.

It comes after the chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, announced in 2008 that all patients admitted to hospital should be screened.

Doctors are being told to take action to reduce the risk of clots developing, which can often strike without warning.

Measures include giving patients compression stockings, blood-thinning drugs such as heparin or using foot pumps to keep blood circulating.

The focus of the guidance is on those clots that occur in veins, most commonly in the leg, called deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

If such a blood clot breaks loose, it can travel in the bloodstream to the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism which can be fatal.

People who are unwell and who do not move around much are at greater risk of DVT.

Those who are overweight, who are dehydrated, aged over 60, and women taking the combined pill or hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are also at increased risk.

Pregnant women and those who have given birth in the previous six weeks should also be watched closely, as should those having a long operation or people who will be confined to bed for at least three days.

The risk of DVT will be set against the chance a patient may suffer internal bleeding, which can occur with some health conditions but is also a side-effect of blood thinning drugs.

Professor Tom Treasure, who chaired the guideline development group, described blood clots as a “silent killer”.

He said doctors should be assessing people with a view to offering some sort of treatment or device, with even just one risk factor “triggering the question” of whether treatment is needed.