Guidance

This guideline covers home safety assessments, supplying and installing safety equipment and providing education and advice. It aims to prevent unintentional injuries among all children and young people aged under 15 but, in particular, those living in disadvantaged circumstances.

NICE has also published guidelines on unintentional injuries: prevention strategies for under 15s and unintentional injuries on the road: interventions for under 15s. (The former covers strategies for the home, on the road and outdoors.)

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

Who is it for?

  • Commissioners and providers of health, environmental health and housing services and associations
  • Local authority children’s services, Sure Start and children’s centres
  • Health and wellbeing boards, local safeguarding children boards and local strategic partnerships
  • Police, fire and rescue services
  • Practitioners who visit families and carers of those aged under 15
  • Children, young people, their 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 preventing unintentional injuries among under-15s in the home. 

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.