Collecting injury data could reduce emergency attendances

Data on injuries can be collected relatively easily at A&E departments to help understand injury patterns in communities, a study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has found. Since January 2012, injury data have been collected at the two main Accident & Emergency departments of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and the Horton General Hospital in Banbury by clerical staff with a good level of success. In their analysis, the researchers found that out of the 63,877 injury attendances recorded, 26,536 were unintentional injuries. The most frequent location, mechanism and activity were home (39.1 per cent), low-level falls (47.1 per cent) and leisure (31.1 per cent), respectively. There was a significant association between increasing levels of deprivation and an increasing incidence rate for all unintentional injuries, for those in the home, for low-level falls and for non-sport leisure injuries. The data collection project at the two Oxfordshire hospitals was initiated to inform the current development of the NHS emergency care dataset project now underway across England. The existing NHS emergency care dataset has been in use since the 1970s.