National burn prevention meeting welcomes Mary Creagh MP

The first national British Burn Association (BBA) Prevention Meeting took place on 20th May at Birmingham Council House hosted by the Lord Mayor and organised by Dr Amber Young, BBA prevention lead

The British Burn Association, formed in 1968, is a national nonprofit making organisation with charitable status. The association was established to promote study into burn prevention, treatment and care for public benefit.

Membership includes clinicians, scientists, nurses, allied health professionals and non-medical workers actively engaged in burn care and prevention.

The event was hosted by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and attended by the Labour MP for Wakefield, Mary Creagh. Mary took time out of her busy schedule to address the meeting as keynote speaker. Her emphasis was on the politician’s ability to effect change in injury prevention.

In 2006 Mary launched a campaign aimed at preventing scalds in the home. She brought together medical experts, campaign groups, a wellknown celebrity and victims of scalds to lobby the Government to change building regulations to prevent people being burned by scalding hot bath water.

Mary pressured the Government to make the fitting of a water temperature regulating device (Thermostatic Mixing Valve or TMV) compulsory in new bathrooms. In 2009, after a three-year Hot Water Burns Like Fire campaign, the Government confirmed that from April 2010 TMVs would be fitted to all new and refurbished homes in England. This was one of the most major advances in burn care prevention in recent times.

Among those attending the meeting were staff from clinical teams, public health services, fire brigades, ambulance trusts, charities and patients. The speakers were leaders in their field and at the forefront of UK prevention work. Topics included hot drink injury prevention, NICE guidelines, current UK burn prevention perspectives and research programmes and how this work could be coordinated and developed. The meeting was very well received with all comments positive and enthusiastic.

Amber Young, BBA prevention chair and children’s burns lead, South West UK Children’s Burn Centre, Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, summarised: “One hundred and eighty children are seen in hospital every day with scalds due to hot drink spillages. We need a coordinated approach across the country to change this and other entirely preventable burn injuries for the benefit of the UK population. If this, the first British Burn Association Prevention Day, raises the profile of burn injury prevention it will have made a difference to UK healthcare and to current and future burn patients.

Mary Creagh has made previous major advances in the field of burn prevention and we are hugely appreciative of her time and for speaking so eloquently today”.

Creagh said: “I was honoured to have been asked to speak at the first national British Burn Prevention meeting. The burns experts and specialists I met do magnificent work not just in treating children who have suffered burn injuries, but also in vital burn prevention work.

This work saves lives, NHS costs and long-term scarring for many children.

“I am proud that as a result of our campaign we changed the law to make water temperature regulating devices compulsory in all new homes in England. The success of the Hot Water Burns Like Fire campaign showed that politics can be a force for good and positive change. I want to thank all the fantastic people who worked together to make this change happen, particularly Holly Devenport from Wakefield, who inspired the campaign, and my Labour colleague Iain Wright MP, who was the minister who listened to the campaign and changed the law.

“I also want to thank the BBA prevention strategy lead Dr Amber Young who is working on a campaign to highlight the danger to young children of hot drinks. Thousands of children are scalded by hot drinks every year.

Dr Young and her team at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, have produced a film showing how easily scalding accidents can happen in the home. Everyone with young children should watch it and share it with their friends. Watch it on my website at www.marycreagh.co.uk”