By the way... To stay out of A&E buy some crampons

THE recent cold, icy conditions made me think back to the time when I was an A&E doctor at Charing Cross Hospital in West London.

One winter, for more than two weeks the daytime temperature never rose above freezing, and we were overwhelmed with patients who had slipped and fallen on icy pavements, suffering fractures.

Persistent frosty conditions are actually a greater problem than snow. In snow, people are more careful because the dangers are more obvious. But in the frost, the icy patches can catch you unaware.

Most of the injuries we saw (and continue to see in such conditions) were wrist fractures — sustained when the patient stretched out a hand behind them to try to reduce the impact of a backwards fall — or hip fractures.

Hip fractures are particularly worrying, as major injuries such as these can be fatal in the elderly, not least because these days you can expect a wait of hours or even days before an operation can be scheduled or, in many cases, a bed can be found.

The consequence of that is a far greater chance of deep vein thrombosis due to immobility — which can lead to death by pulmonary embolism, where a blood clot passes from the legs to the lungs — or, no less commonly, pneumonia, again a consequence of immobility.

And simple falls on ice can cause several other injuries, from spinal fractures to broken skulls and painful elbow injuries.

I live in a hilly part of Glasgow, where the combination of unswept rotting leaves and a vicious frost presents a serious hazard.

As a result, my wife and my friends have bought crampons to fit to their shoes (I am yet to try them).

This might sound like something from a Monty Python sketch, but if it saves even a sprained coccyx (guaranteed to ruin most of the next 12 months), then what appears to be a loony idea and extreme solution for British terrain will prove to be a sensible purchase that will no doubt relieve some of the burdens on the health service at winter.