A more coherent approach is overdue at a local level to help prevent accidental injuries to children, according to a new joint report published today by the Audit Commission and the Healthcare Commission.
Better Safe Than Sorry: Preventing Unintentional Injury to Children, says that each year there are approximately two million attendances by children at hospital accident and emergency (A&E) departments as the result of accidents that might have been prevented.
This costs the NHS approximately £146 million per year and the most recent figures show that accidental injuries kill three children in every 100,000 each year – a similar rate to cancer.
Injuries such as those caused by burns, falling down stairs at home, slipping on railway embankments and poisoning, are a leading cause of death and illness in children aged 1-14, and account for approximately 120,000 admissions to hospital a year.
Understanding of the underlying causes of children’s injury is patchy and the actual number of injuries each year is unknown. Although the overall number of deaths has fallen, the report shows that there are persistent and widening differences between socio-economic groups. Children of parents who have never worked, or who have been unemployed for a long time, are 13 times more likely to die from unintentional injury than children of parents in higher managerial and professional occupations.
There are many ad hoc local initiatives to help prevent children’s accidents, but they are often poorly coordinated and rely on committed individuals who frequently work in isolation and sometimes duplicate what others have done. There is also an absence of evaluative data on the success of local prevention initiatives.
The report recommends that:
- the Department of Health and other central departments of government should together state more clearly what is required locally to prevent accidents and give more information on what works;
- councils, primary care trusts and their partners need to know how and where accidents occur by pooling their information; and
- together, councils, primary care trusts and their partners need to apply evidence of what works and evaluate the impact at the local level and sustain their actions.
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, Chairman of the Healthcare Commission, said:
‘The right of all children to be protected from avoidable accidents and injuries must be embedded in the work of those who provide public services. Health services need to collect robust data on the types and causes of injuries that they see in the children whom they treat. Collecting and analysing this information is crucial to ensure that the right strategies for prevention are put in place and lives are saved. Success will depend on partnerships across the NHS, local government and others.’
Michael O’Higgins, Chairman of the Audit Commission, said:
‘Each year there are approximately two million attendances at A&E departments by children as a result of accidental injury. This causes considerable stress and anxiety for children and their families and carers. Few of us can imagine the heartache caused by the loss of a child, but the most recent figures showed that 230 children died in one year from accidents that might have been prevented'.
