Airedale Hospital criticised over failure to tackle violent crime (From Craven Herald)

Airedale Hospital criticised over failure to tackle violent crime

9:00am Friday 15th February 2013 in News

Police and Airedale Hospital are failing to join forces to tackle violent crime, a highly-critical report has found.

Airedale – and Bradford Teaching Hospitals – have both been criticised for not complying with Government instructions to share key data effectively.

In 2010, accident and emergency (A&E) departments were ordered to act after a trial in Cardiff found that sharing information could cut violent crime by up to 40 per cent.

They are expected to pass on to police and local councils non-confidential information about victims who come to the hospitals.

The data should include the time and place of assaults, the types of weapon used and types of attack.

Such information can then be used to paint a picture of where violence takes place in an area, so police and local councils can send in resources to tackle it.

But the report for the Department of Health gave Airedale NHS Foundation Trust just four on a descending scale of one to five.

The report said data was shared only with the local primary care trust – not with police.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust received three.

Only around 25 per cent of assaults that need medical attention are reported to police across the country, according to the report.

Chris Miles, Airedale’s director of operations, blamed inadequate technology for its poor showing.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t want to help,” he said. “However, our old patient administration system did not have the ability to record the information.

“We have recently installed a new patient administration system and would expect to be able to do this in future.”