Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the research conducted by the Health Service Journal, published on 8 May 2018, if he will make an estimate on the number of patients at risk of developing a venous thromboembolism as a result of the decline in assessments being undertaken.

In the third quarter of 2017/18, England as a whole continued to achieve the 95% NHS Standard Contract threshold for venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk assessments. Of the 3.7 million admitted adult inpatients for whom data was reported in this collection, 3.5 million (95%) were risk assessed for VTE on admission.

NHS Improvement is working with providers to ensure that they are meeting this target on a consistent basis and that any variation is reduced to ensure patients are kept safe.