Accidential Injury Task Force's Working Group on Older People - Priorities for prevention (Report to the Department of Health)

The Accidental Injury Task Force (AITF) was convened to advise the Chief Medical Officer on the prevention of accidental injuries. At its second meeting on 26 February 2001, it agreed to set up three working groups on children, older people and measuring and monitoring injury. The terms of reference of the Working Group on Older People are:

Taking account of Saving Lives, the National Service Framework for Older People, and other relevant initiatives, to advise the Accidental Injury Task Force by its next meeting on 25 June on:

The most important priorities for action to reduce the burden of accidental injury among older people

How such action would reduce health inequalities

What further work might be undertaken after 25 June by the working group on

medium-term actions requiring further information or development

longer-term actions requiring further research

the development of an implementation plan for immediate actions

delivery structures to take forward the implementation plan.

Since that meeting of the AITF, the Health Development Agency (HDA) commissioned a report to describe what works in the prevention of accidental injury amongst older people referred to as 'What Works'. This has formed the basis of the deliberations of the working group.

The purpose of this report is to propose priorities for prevention of accidental injury amongst older people.

In order to achieve this, the size of the problem has been described and the major causes of accidental injury amongst older people identified. The epidemiology of accidental injury for each of these causes has been summarised, and what we know about the cause of these events described.

For the three major external causes of accidental injury (falls, road traffic accidents (RTAS) and domestic fires), interventions that have been judged to be effective are presented. This information was synthesised to produce strategies for prevention for each area.

The contents of this report are based on 'What Works', and work carried out for the DH by the rapporteur (CC) [Cryer, 1998 #46] [Cryer C, 2000 #98].