Jenny Hope and Steve Doughty
Daily Mail [UK]
18th May 2010
Parents of children under five are to get home checks to ensure they are keeping their youngsters safe.
Inspectors will check whether families have installed smoke alarms, stair gates, locks on medicine cupboards, windows and ovens, and fitted temperature controls to stop bath water getting too hot.
Guidelines for inspections have been drawn up on the instructions of the Department of Health in a bid to prevent injuries among under-15s in the home.
More than two million children visit casualty departments with such injuries each year, says the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which has developed the guidelines.
In 2008, 208 under-15s in England and Wales died as a result.
But the scheme is being condemned by critics as a breach of privacy and a nanny state intrusion into family life.
The draft guidelines issued yesterday call for all families to have the option of home safety inspections by trained staff from the NHS or local councils. Health and safety organisations are told to identify homes where children are thought to be most at risk of accidents and ‘offer home risk assessments’.
In some cases, the offer will come after GPs or school nurses have raised the alarm because a child has been to hospital repeatedly for emergency treatment.
The article continues at the Daily Mail.
