Guidance
This guideline covers strategies, regulation, enforcement, surveillance and workforce development in relation to preventing unintentional injuries in the home, on the road and during outdoor play and leisure.
NICE has also produced guidelines on unintentional injuries in the home: interventions for under 15s and unintentional injuries on the road: interventions for under 15s.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- incorporating unintentional injury prevention within local and national plans and strategies for children and young people's health and wellbeing
- installation and maintenance of permanent safety equipment in social and rented dwellings and home safety assessments
- developing policies for public outdoor play and leisure
- promoting and enforcing speed reduction on roads and managing road safety partnerships
Who is it for?
- Commissioners and providers of health services and local authority children’s services
- Policy makers, local authorities, local strategic partnerships and local safeguarding children boards
- Highway authorities, police, fire and rescue services
- Schools and providers of play and leisure facilities
- Children, young people, parents and carers and other members of the public
Is this guideline up to date?
October 2019: We have found no new evidence that affects the recommendations. For more information, see the surveillance decision.
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
This guideline was previously called strategies to prevent unintentional injuries among the under-15s.
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.