No clinician in healthcare would deny that finance is an important area, but it is rarely the subject of discussion at clinical meetings or areas of research undertaken by clinicians. The value of such work is that it brings vitally important understanding to the problems and consequences associated with change. These changes can be in many areas: staffing, consumables, the introduction of new techniques, service resizing, service closure.
The work undertaken in Manchester, UK has focused on answering questions concerning the cost of burn care and on modelling change. The process initiated in 2007 was to establish a financial baseline against which changes could be evaluated. The many steps in this process will be coming to a conclusion in the near future and already allow a far more profound understanding of the consequences of changes in burn care. These developments fall into 4 key areas, each 1 of which will be presented separately:
The financial consequences of change in terms of service funding.
An understanding of the epidemiology of burn care demand and the geographical areas of high demand.
The financial consequences of service reorganisation and the requirements for resilience in such planning.
The financial consequences of introducing changes in clinical practice and evaluating its impact on service activity and funding.
Latest statistics show 11 toddlers suffer a major burn daily in UK*
Today, on National Burns Awareness Day 2017, latest statistics show an alarming number of UK children are experiencing life-changing burn injuries every single day.
The Children’s Burns Trust, together with the British Burn Association, have released exclusive insight from the International Burn Injury Database to raise awareness of burn prevention and burn-related first aid on National Burn Awareness Day 2017.
The latest figures, released by the two leading organisations in burn prevention and support, show that in 2016 more than 600 children a month required admission to an NHS Burns Service following a burn or scald injury. Shockingly, this figure only relates to the more serious injuries and does not include the thousands who were seen for more minor burns in A&E departments up and down the country.
The Children’s Burns Trust, whose work is focused on children and their families, have highlighted that of the figure admitted to a specialist burns service, over 50% were children under the age of 5. That’s more than 11 toddlers every single day.
Ken Dunn, Consultant Burns and Plastic Surgeon, and chair of the British Burn Association’s Prevention Committee, said: “The vast majority of burn injuries are accidents, and whether suffered by adults, children or the elderly, most are entirely avoidable. If people take away one key message from National Burns Awareness Day 2017, it is that prevention and good first aid are the vital ingredients in reducing the number of burn-related accidents across the UK.”
Hundreds of NHS Services, Fire and Rescue Services, along with other organisations, come together each year on National Burn Awareness Day to raise awareness of the alarming number of people burned each and every day in the UK – the vast majority of which are preventable. The campaign also helps to promote the vital message of the importance of good first aid if a burn or scald does occur.
All statistics provided by the International Burn Injury Database (iBID: http://www.cbtrust.org.uk/burn-prevention/database/):
*This figure doesn’t include the thousands of children seen daily in A&E and discharged.
Support for the National Burn Awareness Day on 19th Oct 2016 had a wide base and the range of activities were impressive. The Children’s Burns Trust (CBT) worked with the British Burn Association (BBA) to grow the momentum and reach an even wider audience exploring ways to work collaboratively with support from, amongst others: Child Accident Prevention Trust, Electrical Safety First, the Government’s Fire Kills campaign and the Chief Fire Officers Association. Many other agencies and charities were also involved in using iBID data to spread the message about the importance of burn injury prevention.
The conference of the Chief Fire Officers Association focused on the development of the Fire and Health initiative, presented by Geoff Harris as vice-chair of the Strategic Health Group. This was supported by evidence from an iBID presentation outlining the methodology for the identification of vulnerable subgroups of the population and the means of monitoring burn injuries in the community.
The second BBA National Burn Awareness Day was held on the 21 October 2015, and again the BBA Prevention Committee thanked iBID for providing site specific information to burn services and national overview of burn injury causation.
A more detailed report of the day is available from: