Ricky’s main professional interests are trauma/orthopaedic and cardiovascular issues. His doctoral thesis was on “Advancing Clinical Practice in the management of Venous Thromboembolism: development, application and validation of the Autar DVT scale.

Annually 25,000-32,000 people die of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) in England and due to the magnitude of the problem, as specialist adviser, Ricky was invited by the House of Common Health Select Committee to report and submit evidence on the preventative management of VTE. Following publication of the report by the Health Select Committee in February 2005, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) was charged by the Department of Health to produce a VTE guideline.

Ricky was a participant member of the NICE Guideline Development Group, in the development and dissemination of a VTE guidance on “Reducing the risk of venous thromboembolism (deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism) in patients undergoing surgery”, published in April 2007. Further to the review of this guidance in 2009, Ricky contributed substantially to its update, as representation of the Royal College of Nursing and the updated guidance was published in January 2010. Ricky has published extensively on every aspects of VTE and is currently a member of the UK Venous Thromboprophylaxis Forum, charged with the dissemination of evidence based prevention of venous thromboembolism.