Home Safety Scotland has published their analysis of Unintentional Injuries in Scotland for 2017. You can read a synopsis of the report here as well as downloading the full report at the bottom of the page.

This document has been produced to help support the Scottish Government’s Building Safer Communities Phase 2 programme which was launched earlier this year.

Its principle aim is to draw attention to the scale of the unintentional injury problem and in particular to highlight that the principle unintentional injury problem in Scotland are home accidents, which cause more deaths and injuries than any other cause.

The following is taken from Building Safer Communities Phase 2 programme raises a compelling narrative for action to tackle the scale unintentional harm in Scotland:

“The sheer numbers compared to other community safety themes: deaths per year (16 to 18 times the number of homicide victims annually) and one of the leading causes of death for children; 55,547 emergency hospital admissions annually (1 in 10 adult emergency hospital admissions and 1 in 8 child emergency hospital admissions are due to unintentional harm) and at least half a million incidents per year”.

Most unintentional harm is preventable, this is particular so with unintentional injuries involving the most vulnerable age groups in society, such as the under fives and older people.  Therefore there is much scope for improvement both nationally and locally.

Accidents in the home in Scotland have generally not been seen as a priority for action, even though more people than ever before, in Scotland die or are injured as result of an accident within the home.

Home accidents are the principle cause of accidental death and injury in Scotland

  • 766 home accident deaths in 2015, representing 40%of all unintentional deaths, over 4 times the deaths from road accidents.
  • 18,468 emergency hospital admissions in 2015/16 as result of an unintentional injury in the home (33% of all unintentional injuries resulting in an emergency admission to hospital).

The age groups most at risk are the most vulnerable in society, the very young (under five) and the old.

Home Safety Scotland hopes that local community partnerships will find the information in this document useful and will assist local partnerships to develop appropriate prevention strategies to reduce unintentional harm in the home and help save lives.

Download the full Home Safety Scotland report here.