In the midst of everything that is going on with COVID-19 it is easy to see how important non coronavirus stuff can get overlooked. But we still need to keep our eyes open.

After a 3 year process involving many meetings, stakeholder comments, high levels of oversight and fantastic technical support, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence in the UK (NICE) released their updated guidelines on the diagnosis and management of venous thromboembolic (VTE) disease​.

Given the current situation, it has not had much press. However, we need this type of guidance more than ever at present, to support ambulatory pathways, refined diagnostic testing and bespoke therapeutic intervention.

Firstly for emergency medicine, this guideline now officially supports the use of age adjusted d-dimer strategies for both DVT/PE and the use of the Pulmonary Embolism Rule Out Criteria (PERC).

This guideline also now supports the use of DOACs as interim anticoagulation pending diagnosis.

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