The Management of Knife Injuries Consensus Conference

Professor Michael Horrocks President, ASGBI

Featured Topics

Effective NHS contributions to violence prevention
Preventative collaboration with youth agencies and other charities
Improving the management of knife injuries
Open discussion, consensus and conclusions
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Welcome

Monday 15th November 2010 saw 114 delegates attend the first joint surgical/police conference on improving co-operation and effectiveness of harm prevention and crime reduction associated with knives. The event received extremely positive feedback, a good deal of national media coverage and resulted in the following statement, laying out the major areas of agreement:

Key Agreements

Background:

Tackling violence needs close co-operation with police and other partners across the public, private and voluntary sectors. There is a need for all public services to work together more cohesively to break down barriers and tackle violence in the community and the role of the extended family requires support.
There is a need for long-term policy focusing on prevention – the best evidence for prevention lies in targeting children before they become involved in violence as either victims or offenders.
Police enforcement activity is crucial, but cannot be a long-term solution and is often not a deterrent for this group.

Extending education programmes:

Surgeons should get involved in early years peer group education programmes involving schools, youth organisations and local police forces.
More needs to be done to link up new local violence campaign/support groups and agencies to work collaboratively with existing organisations and pre-existing infrastructure.

Sharing of data and public health measures:

Data sharing between emergency departments and community crime reduction partnerships must become standard practice in every hospital in the UK – ASGBI commits to encouraging surgeons to work to set this up in their local hospitals.
ASGBI and the Metropolitan Police are of the opinion that we should go further on the quality and nature of data shared. Fears over patient anonymity are inhibiting the ability to properly target services for some hospitals. Non-anonymised data sharing between public services for violent injuries would support approaches to safeguarding children and adults. This would require ratification by the General Medical Council.
ASGBI would support the restrictions on access to alcohol. The evidence suggests that this would have a dramatic effect on violent behaviour in the young.

Surgical training:

ASGBI and The Surgical Foundation endorse the development of regional trauma networks – these must be supported by accredited training programmes and courses that include the management of violent injuries.
ASGBI strongly recommends that all general surgeons involved in the treatment of trauma should attend one of these accredited training programmes.
Surgeons should be trained to appreciate forensic requirements of the criminal justice system by preserving evidence.

For a copy of the Consensus Statement published in accordance with this conference please email admin@asgbi.org.uk

Prof M Horrocks Sig

Professor Michael Horrocks
ASGBI President

Featured Topics

Welcome

Key Agreements

Sponsors