A Catastrophic Bleed injury

Even with a pandemic hitting 2020 hard for over 8 months of the year, knife crime is still on the rise.  During the second week of lockdown at the end of March 2020, in separate incidents – 9 people were fatally stabbed in the UK.

Outside of a pandemic, stabbings in England and Wales are unfortunately on the rise.

• One in four (25%) of all knife crime resulted in injury in 2019/20.^
• Data for NHS hospitals in England over a similar period showed an 8% increase in admissions for assault by a sharp object.*
• Doctors said the injuries they were treating were becoming more severe and the victims were getting younger, with increasing numbers of girls involved.*
• In the year ending March 2020, there were around 46,000 (selected) offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in England and Wales*^

The Daniel Baird Foundation

This is where bleed kits come in.  Spearheaded by Lynn Baird, who lost her son Daniel to a knife attack in Birmingham in 2017, we have been working in partnership with her charity and the West Midlands Police Force to create a suitable cabinet to house the bleed kits she is hoping to get distributed around Birmingham, and other large cities in the area.

What’s in a bleed control kit?

A bleed control kit contains items that are not available in a normal first aid kit.

These include instructions, a tourniquet, absorbent dressing, gloves, a chest seal for a serious chest injury, and a hemostatic dressing for the internal control of a deep wound.

On average it takes an ambulance seven minutes to arrive. Bleeding from trauma injuries can prove fatal in three to five minutes, the Baird Foundation charity have said.

Why do you need a cabinet?

By having a bleed control kit in a cabinet, that is registered with the local ambulance service, the chance of saving someone’s life is higher.

A cabinet is a visible sign a bleed kit is available.  Instead of making the cabinets smaller, we have kept the current size so they are highly visible to first aiders.

The Daniel Baird Foundation delivered a number bleed kits to pubs and clubs in Birmingham in the last few years, but unfortunately so many bleed kits are behind the bar, or in offices, languishing away and only known to be there by a few people – so little chance of them being used in time.

*^ 7 Commons Library Briefing, 6 October 2020

^ Metropolitan Police Service, Crime statistics 2019/20

* NHS Digital