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41
8
ACCIDENTS IN THE HOME
The Committee charged with matters relating to home accidents
in Wandsworth is the Accident Prevention Committee which deals,
of course, not only with home accidents but with road accidents as
well. As with all public health matters, information as to what is
happening is essential to preventive action and I, therefore, have
gone to some pains to obtain data about home accidents in Wandsworth.
Unfortunately, there is no very definite information to hand
relating to home accidents. There are certain national figures but
not many relating to individual areas or boroughs. Recently,
however, the County Medical Officer of Health for London informed
me that he was taking steps to obtain from hospitals certain
data relating to admission to hospitals of home accident cases,
both in-patients and out-patients. These would be obtained for a
period of six months and will, it is hoped, be a representative crosssection
of the types of accidents occurring in the London boroughs,
including Wandsworth. It will be some time before this data is
available but in the meantime, from returns made by the London
Ambulance Service, I have been able to calculate figures for
Wandsworth. I should say that the figures provided do not refer to
any individual borough but they are available for the nine health
divisions of the County. By means of certain calculations, I have
been able to extract figures relating to Wandsworth from the overall
figures presented for Health Division 9 of the London County
Council and these are shown in Tables I and II. They represent the
home accident cases conveyed to hospitals in London by London
ambulances and they include both fatal and non-fatal cases and also
some that are treated as out-patients as well as others treated as
in-patients. I have calculated the figures for Wandsworth for 1956,
1957 and 1958. I would stress that the figures as set out are not
absolutely accurate although I do not think that the errors are likely to
be very large. Generally speaking, they can be taken as a reasonably
accurate picture of the home accidents which have occurred in
Wandsworth in 1956, 1957 and 1958.
The figures speak for themselves and need little explanation.
The main points of interest are the high proportion of cases occurring
in the age groups over 60 and also in the age group under five.
Falls of various kinds provide the greatest number of accidents
although quite a percentage are also brought about by knife-like
wounds.
What is to be learnt from these figures? In most households
where a severe accident has already occurred, this very fact is
probably enough to ensure caution and care in the future. Our
main effort, therefore, should be directed towards education of the