Guidelines on the use and monitoring of heparin.

The guideline group was selected to be representative of UK-based medical experts. The drafting group met and communicated by e-mail. Draft guidelines were revised by consensus. Since the initial guideline published by the British Committee for Standards in Haematology (BCSH; Colvin & Barrowcliffe, 1993) evidence-based guidelines on the use and monitoring of heparin have been included in the American College of Chest Physicians Consensus Conferences on Antithrombotic Therapy ( ACCP; Hirsh & Raschke, 2004) and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network ( SIGN; http://www.sign.ac.uk/guidelines/fulltext/36/section12.html). Reference to these guidelines is advised for a comprehensive review of the evidence. The recommendations in this BCSH guideline generally reflect those of the ACCP and SIGN and are updated where appropriate to encompass recent studies. The guideline was reviewed by a multidisciplinary sounding board, the BCSH and the British Society for Haematology (BSH) and comments incorporated where appropriate. Criteria used to quote levels and grades of evidence are as in Appendix 3 of the Procedure for Guidelines Commissioned by the BCSH (http://www.bcshguidelines.com).

The target audience for this guideline is healthcare professionals involved in the management of patients receiving heparin.