Watchdogs Demand Tougher Action To Cut Back On 2m Child Accidents

Two million children went to hospital A&E departments in the United Kingdom last year following accidents – many of which could have been prevented, a joint report by the health and public expenditure watchdogs has found.

The latest figures, which do not include road accidents, indicate that a further 120,000 under-14s were admitted to hospital wards in England and Wales, at a cost to the NHS of £146m. A total of 230 died – placing accidents on a par with cancer as a leading cause of childhood deaths.

But the risks of dying are disproportionately high for the most disadvantaged children. Those whose parents are long-term unemployed are 13 times more likely than children from the most affluent households to die, while children who live in temporary accommodation are 70 times more likely to die in a fire.

The Healthcare Commission and Audit Commission’s report calls on the government to state what primary care trusts should be doing to reduce their childhood accident rates and to collate better information to counter the trends.

The report, Better Safe than Sorry, suggests that slashing the number of accidental childhood deaths – caused largely by poisoning, falls, slipping on railway embankments, scalds and burns – has dropped out of the government’s list of priorities.

In 2001, the Department of Health set up an accidental injury task force to tackle the problem. However, the report says that recommendations the task force made a year later – covering accidents on and off the roads – are not being carried out consistently.

The report calls for councils and primary care trusts to implement the measures, which include installing smoke detectors, introducing 20mph speed limits in some areas, and increasing the number of children wearing cycle helmets.

It urges primary care trusts and councils to pool information and to learn from the example of trusts such as the one at Burnley – now East Lancashire PCT – which cut its accident rate among under-fives by 21% in three years through installing stair gates, locks on kitchen cupboards and safety plugs for sockets in the most deprived homes. Launching the report, Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, who chairs the Healthcare Commission, said: “For too long, this issue has been pushed down the agenda. No single agency or body has taken a strong lead.

“We can’t produce an accident-free society, nor would one want one that was literally risk-averse. But we can and should do better, particularly if we can learn how to do so. Anyone who says it’s inappropriate for us to do this hasn’t seen a child in hospital who has been scalded from water falling from a stove.”

He added that it was all too easy to blame parents for accidents, but those children most at risk lived in families where parents were the most financially or physically overstretched already. “It’s entirely possible and satisfying to say it’s all the fault of the parents, [but] not everybody can drive their child to school in a 4×4 or arrange it to ensure one of their four children is taken to school rather than having to negotiate a main road. Not everyone can afford a stair gate … or have permission to fit it.”

Michael O’Higgins, who chairs the Audit Commission, said it was “self-evident” that parents had a role, but added: “We are not saying we should supplant parents, but it would be criminally irresponsible [of us] not to do more.”

Those families at the greatest risk were those in old, poor-quality housing, he added, who did not have access to the resources to by stair gates, cupboard locks and plug protectors.

Janice Cave, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, said: “This report is sending a clear message to the government for a more coherent approach to accident prevention for children, and is a much-needed breath of fresh air.

The Audit Commission will shortly publish a separate report on road accidents involving children.