Home Accident Statistics in Scotland

In the UK every year, almost 6,000 people die in home accidents and 2.7million visit their local accident and emergency departments seeking help.

Similar to the rest of the UK, Scotland has a challenge to reduce the number of people killed and injured in the place we all believe should be safe - our own homes. People who spend more of their time at home suffer proportionally more accidental injuries, i.e. the very young and older people.

A set of tables has been produced by the ISD for RoSPA in Scotland which shows the number of children under the age of five and the number of people aged 65 and over who have been admitted to hospital over the last ten years recorded by local authority area. This information is supported by a further table which gives similar information but includes rates per hundred thousand population. Thank you to Mr Mike Grimmer, Information Services, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, for preparing this data.

Up-to-date information on those who visit accident and emergency departments has not been available across the UK since 2002 (following the cessation of the Home Accident Surveillance System). However, progress is being made in Scotland as the ISD has been tasked by the Scottish Government to improve the data available and is currently engaged with local health boards to establish what information it will be feasible to collect.

Based on previous figures and trends, RoSPA in Scotland estimates that every day around 1,000 people are seeking some kind of medical attention following an accidental injury received at home.

Further detailed information on home accidents in Scotland has been produced by the practitioners group Home Safety Scotland and is available on the Home Safety Scotland website.

A series of reports has been produced by the Scottish Government’s Building Safer Communities Phase 2 Programme. These reports include: National Strategic Assessment for Unintentional Harm and Strategic Assessment of Unintentional Harm, Summary Report. Also available is a series of Thematic Papers and Appendices. For further information contact Elizabeth Lumsden on [email protected]

The benefits of taking preventative measures are clear and quantifiable in terms of both health and economic costs, resulting in:

The potential to save lives
Improved quality of life for all
Reductions in the cost of acute care
Reductions in the cost of continued community support required after hospital discharge.