The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has said that thousands of people with atrial fibrillation (AF) could be prevented from having strokes, disability or death if its new guidance is followed. It says many patients with AF are not being appropriately anticoagulated and highlights how there has not been widespread uptake of novel oral anticoagulant drugs (NOACs) which were approved by NICE in 2012.
Clinical guideline 180 published in June 2014 updates and replaces the 2006 NICE clinical guideline 36. The full guidance can be found at http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/CG180
NICE Chair, Professor David Haslam writes on the