Letter

Accidents needn’t happen

Dear healthmatters — In my opinion the many organisations who have a responsibility for accident prevention do not treat the subject with the priority it deserves.

Accidents cost the health service over £1bn per year and it appears in the top three causes of death in all age groups below 44.

With such an enormous problem you would have though that government departments would work together to reduce the problem. Why couldn’t the Department of Transport work with the Department of the Environment on road accidents? At least the NHS could include accidents in their annual review process — but no such luck.

As Mandy pointed out in her article, the victims are often blamed for the accidents. How can you blame an inner city child with no place to play for being run over by a car-driving commuter? How can you blame a family reliant on income support for not being able to afford a child’s stair gate now that this type of grant has been withdrawn by the Department of Social Security?

I believe we need to provide a framework using a “top-down” approach before we ask for assistance from the “bottom-up”.