RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

November 8, 2007
FINDING SOLUTIONS FOR BRITAIN’S BIGGEST ACCIDENT PROBLEM

Groundbreaking schemes using innovative ways to prevent accidental deaths and injuries in the home will be featured at a major RoSPA conference next week.

The National Home Safety Congress will include a presentation by Telford and Wrekin Council’s Home Improvement Agency, which aims to prevent accidents among older people – one of the highest risk groups. The project is part of the area’s multi-agency approach to preventing unintentional injury that gained national recognition in an Audit Commission report earlier this year.

The conference, hosted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents on Monday and Tuesday (November 12 and 13) at the Thistle Hotel, Cheltenham, will give an insight into the type of injuries people sustain at home and explore how organisations working in partnership can prevent them.

More people are injured in the home than anywhere else. Latest figures show that 2.7 million people go to an accident and emergency department and nearly 4,000 people die as a result of home accidents every year in the UK.

Tom Mullarkey, RoSPA Chief Executive, will give the opening address at the conference, which is sponsored by the Electrical Safety Council.

A speaker from the Audit Commission will outline its Better Safe Than Sorry report, produced jointly with the Healthcare Commission. The report, in which three projects supported by RoSPA were praised - including Telford and Wrekin’s multi-agency approach - also called for stronger leadership from the Government and more joint working to reduce the suffering that unintentional injury causes.

Representatives of projects from Northumberland, Harrow, Dundee and Wales will tell the conference about their approach to Home Safety, and the Birmingham-based Malachi Community Trust will give a DVD presentation of its home safety training with children.

Delegates will also hear about the new UK Injury Data Surveillance Project, established by RoSPA, the Electrical Safety Council and Intertek RAM, which is investigating the need for the collection of national accidental injury figures. There has not been a co-ordinated national system for collecting such data since the end of the Department for Trade and Industry’s Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance System in 2002.

Dawn Dcaccia, Head of Home Safety at RoSPA, said: “The Better Safe Than Sorry report clearly stated that a more coherent and partnership-driven approach to accident prevention was needed and this is a message RoSPA will be championing through the National Home Safety Congress.

“We are bringing together projects from across the country that are working hard to reduce the pain and suffering caused by accidents in the home. By working together, we are far more likely to reach those most at risk.”

For more information about the conference, see www.rospa.com/home/, email events@rospa.com or ring 0121 248 2120.