Home is Where the Heart is But is Also Where Most Accidents Occur

For most, the home is a pleasant and comfortable space, it's a personal sanctuary from the chaos and interference of the outside world. It's yours. It's where you can relax, where you can have fun, it's where you feel safe.

This word ‘home' evokes so many pleasant thoughts and emotions but despite the safety that is felt within its walls, that very same ‘home' can be a dangerous treacherous place.

The parallel reality is that almost 4000 people in the UK each year die in accidents that occur in the home environment, and approximately 2.7 million domestic accidents result in a visit to accident and emergency centres for treatment. Going by the 2007 population figures, that 2.7 million people is the equivalent of 4.5% of the UK population sustaining injuries at home that result in visits to accident and emergency departments. We can only guess at the figures of injuries that occur within the home environment that don't result in visits to hospitals.

The somewhat scary statistics were collated by the Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance System in 2002. Exact numbers for following years are unfortunately not available as funding was withdrew by the DTI following the 2002 release, although estimates indicate that accident levels have remained broadly the same.

These accidents rarely attract pubic and media attention and RoSPA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) is one of the few national voices speaking out on the issue of safety within the home environment . Safety in the home is often overlooked and the majority of people may be guilty of cutting corners when carrying out tasks within the home, for instance when carrying out DIY work. A lot of people also don't recognise the need to own and keep suitable first aid items such as a first aid kit and antiseptics in the home, when really such items should always be stocked, especially if there are children in the house.

Of the 2.7 million that visited accident and emergency after a domestic accident, just short of a million were children. Children are, by nature, prone to sustaining minor injuries, but the injuries that resulted in visits to accident and emergency must have been reasonably substantial. But could some of these have been instances where the parent could have, but did not know how to deal with the injury themselves? Or perhaps that they did not have any suitable first aid items to treat the injury stored at home?