‘We get a victim of knife crime in A&E every three days’
MEDICAL staff at Teesside’s largest hospital have revealed the “staggering” impact of violent crime with latest figures also showing violent offences are continuing to soar.
Staff from James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) on the day that Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner Steve Turner launched a £500,000 fund seeking interventions to reduce violence from groups and public sector bodies providing support to people affected by, at risk of, or involved in serious violence.
Office for National Statistics data shows that in 2021/22 the Cleveland Police force area saw a 15.7% hike in violent crime, compared to 12 months earlier, meaning it has the third highest level of violent crime in England and Wales. Cleveland still has the highest level of knife crime in the country – with an increase of 14.1% per 100,000 population in the year from March 2021.
Barney Green, a vascular surgeon at James Cook, who helped campaign for a violence reduction unit in the area – now called CURV – for which £3.5m was awarded by the Government earlier this year, said: “We get someone coming through the A&E front doors having been a victim of knife crime every three days.
“In terms of being attacked with something sharp, that might be a stick or a bottle or glass, that is every 1.4 days. These are staggeringly high statistics and are frankly unacceptable.”
Mr Green said violent crime was for “all of us to fix”.
He said: “Violence is not inevitable, it is completely preventable, and the announcement we have heard today about £500,000 that you can bid for is a fantastic bit of news for starting the programme of work being put in place here.”
Karen Wood, a major trauma co-ordinator, said there were was a “massive” number of patients requiring treatment at James Cook and also described how the pressure on staff had left morale quite low.
She said: “Everyone is quite tired, and it’s carried on from Covid.”
Dr Cat Lane, an A&E consultant, said there was no such thing as a typical day in her department.
She said: “We are busy all the time and see anywhere between 300 and 350 patients a day. The injuries you see can vary, but you can have multiple stabbings overnight to deal with – I am on nights this weekend and it will be busy I’m sure.
“Anything that will have that knock-on effect in reducing the number of patients coming through the department (with violent crime injuries), where that is preventable, is all the better and means we can put resources in other areas where there is absolutely a need.
“But my job is not to judge people, my job is to patch them up, and we see both medical and surgical problems that you could argue in some way are self-inflicted.” Dr Lane also said there also remained an “enormous burden” on services from patients coming to A&E when they could be seeking assistance elsewhere. She said: “Yes we have the serious violence and the people falling over and hurting themselves, but an awful lot of what we see doesn’t even need a GP, this is about self-care.”
Mr Turner said the new funding was open to any group across the area coming up with innovative ideas to help combat serious violence. He said: “The money is there to be spent, if we can spend all £500,000 on quality initiatives that will make a positive impact in Cleveland.”
The PCC admitted rates of violence being seen on the streets and in local communities was getting worse and it remained a priority of his to tackle. He said the ultimate aim was educating young people and “reducing violent crime at its source before it happens” and warned it could take up to five years before any positive impact was felt.
He said: “It’s not about how many people we arrest today, it’s about how we stop future criminals using violence or getting into that criminal activity in the first place.”
A partnership, of which Mr Turner is chairman, has been set up to oversee CURV’s work with a ‘whole system,’ public health approach to tackling violence being envisaged, bringing together key partners to identify the local drivers and rootcauses of serious violence and agree and implement a multi-agency response to them.
The LDRS understands someone has been selected to lead the unit, which will have involvement from representatives from Cleveland Police, local authority children and adult services, public health organisations and the voluntary/community sector, although an official announcement is yet to be made.
Mr Turner added: “The crime statistics published today prove exactly why we need such a tough approach to tackling serious violence in Cleveland. For every violent crime that takes place, there is a ripple effect that impacts the victim and their families, the police, health services and the wider community.
“We must get ahead of this problem. It’s about creating safe spaces where at-risk individuals can be given the tools to live a happy, positive life – rather than becoming involved in crime and violence.”
For every violent crime that takes place there is a ripple effect – we must get ahead of
this problem
PCC Steve Turner