National Burns Awareness Day Oct 2024
The Children’s Burns Trust issued an urgent appeal to parents and carers following a worrying 55% increase in hot water bottle (HWB) burns to children. New data from the International Burn Injury Database (iBID), shows that burn and scalds to children in the first eight months of 2024 increased by 55% compared with the same period in 2023. This come on top of the concerning increase reported prior to the NBAD of 2023. This issue was taken up by BBC Breakfast who reported on the fact that HWB scalds to children in the first eight months of 2024 increased by 121% compared with the same period in 2021.
Advice was provided on how to check how old a HWB is by inspecting the flower symbol on the bottle, which shows the date of manufacture to determine when it should be replaced.
Further to media interviews: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gdvwrdjrvo and https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0jy2bg9 an investigation by iBID staff of the British Standards Institute (BSI) web site revealed that the BS 1970:2012 regarding hot water bottles manufactured from rubber and PVC was withdrawn on 4/3/24 and the responsible technical committee, PRI/68 was disbanded 18/07/22. Given the growing number of injuries from hot water bottles a query was logged on 16/10/2024 with the BSI expressing concern at the withdrawal of the standard and asked when a replacement standard is to be published? No reply has been received.
This information will be shared will involved charities and follow up questions asked of the BSI.