Like the other members who have participated in the debate, I put on record my thanks to Clare Adamson for sponsoring the debate and to all those members who supported the motion, which enabled us to have this important debate. I also recognise Clare’s wider work in convening the cross-party group on accident prevention and safety awareness—that is not the most succinct of titles, but it is an important group to have in the Parliament and I was pleased to attend a recent meeting.
Like Richard Simpson and Alex Johnstone, I thank RoSPA for its tireless work over many years to promote safety in our homes. When RoSPA approached the Scottish Government with the proposals for the Scottish home safety equipment scheme, we were pleased to be able to provide funding for the scheme. Other members have outlined the costings associated with it. The aims of the scheme and the approach taken chimed incredibly well with the Government’s approach, which is about prevention and early intervention. They also chimed with our aim to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up in.
In response to the points that Richard Simpson raised, I will address the child-centred GIRFEC approach that is set out in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, although I will have to be careful because of the on-going legal challenge to a particular part of the act. I recognise the potential for the named person to signpost families to get extra support, particularly in relation to safety. As someone who is about to re-engage with the midwife and health visitor services, and given my experience with my own wee boy, I know the importance of the advice and support that health visitors and midwives can give to families at times of particular vulnerability. Richard Simpson’s point is well made that we must use all our activities to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our children and young people across Scotland.
That chimes particularly well with the aims of our early years collaborative. The Government is firmly focused on reducing inequalities and making sure that every child—the EC in GIRFEC stands for “every child”—has the best start in life and is ready to succeed. That is why we have developed the policies that we have and why we introduced the legislation that I just mentioned. As Richard Simpson says, it was not just the Government that thought of GIRFEC; the approach has been supported across the chamber.
However, the sad fact is that unintentional injury disproportionately affects the most vulnerable groups in society, notably children, older people and those who live in areas of deprivation. As the report points out, there is a substantial financial cost of that both to the NHS and to wider society—an estimated £2 billion cost to Scottish society annually when all groups are taken into account. The most recent data available show that, for a child up to the age of four, the cost of a non-fatal accident that happens at home but is treated in hospital is £10,600—Clare Adamson also mentioned that figure.
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to focus on the finances alone. Unintentional injury is the major cause of death in childhood, and each incident represents a young life and its potential lost, not to mention the traumatic effect on parents, siblings and wider family members. Sadly, the rate of death from injury is consistently around a third higher in Scotland than in England and Wales, and there is good evidence to show that the rate of reduction of child injury in the UK lags far behind the rates in other European countries. As Clare Adamson stated, if the rate in Scotland were the same as the rate in the Netherlands, 47 young people’s lives would have been saved and they would have been able to go on to flourish and contribute to Scottish society. We need to reflect on the human cost of these tragedies.
We cannot be complacent, as there is still much for us to do in this area. As Clare Adamson said, Scotland could do better. In reflecting on what Alex Johnstone said, I think that there is a balance to find in making sure that we do not wrap up our children in cotton wool. There is a slight difference, but I appreciate that, in our work on the play agenda and getting children outdoors, we must allow children to experience and manage risk, so that they go on and manage that better as adults in later life. However, today is about making sure that we create the safety parameters for children in their homes and recognise RoSPA’s work and its instructive evaluation report.
All of us in the chamber, as well as those working with, supporting and nurturing children and young people, want to make Scotland the best place to grow up in. Part of that must be to make sure that our children are safe. The Scottish home safety equipment scheme has taken us a bit of the way along that path. I think that we can agree that the evaluation report published today demonstrates the success of the scheme.
We count that success on a number of different levels. First, there is the number of home safety kits fitted: 841 families and 1,616 children under the age of five are safer. Importantly, kits include blind cord cleats. I commend the work of Gordon Banks MP and my colleague Keith Brown in raising awareness about the dangers of blind cords. In my own family, we have taken action to ensure that our wee one does not run the risk of the dangers of blind cords without cleats. We must ensure that the legacy of the tragedy to which Dr Simpson referred is that awareness is raised and more lives are saved as a result of the actions that the Government takes.
People are safe not only because of the kits but because of the holistic approach that is taken by RoSPA and the local teams in providing a home safety risk assessment and home safety awareness for parents and carers. That in itself is a remarkable achievement. I am aware that we cannot measure what has not happened and, in some ways, we will never know what the full impact of the kits has been, but common sense tells us that lives will have been saved and injuries prevented. As someone has said, there are no randomised control trials to tell people that wearing a parachute when they jump out of an aeroplane is a good thing to do.
The quotes from the parents that have been included in the evaluation report illustrate how much parents have welcomed the scheme. I return to the views of the parent whom Clare Adamson quoted:
“I had been stressing about getting safety gates and other equipment in my home for a while but could not afford it. I was overjoyed when I heard about this scheme. Thank you!”
On David Torrance’s point about people needing eyes in the back of their head when bringing up a wee one, we should not have a situation whereby social inequality and the lack of income prevents a person from making their homes as safe as it can be. We need to sharpen our focus across Government and make sure that our anti-poverty measures recognise the recommendations that are outlined in the RoSPA report.
Although we can count the number of kits fitted and the number of families visited, there are other successes from the scheme that cannot be counted or measured in a traditional way. Indeed, relationships have been built between professionals and families that will provide a springboard for further interaction; and links are made between different professional groups that did not know each other before but which all have a shared interest in making sure families are safe and healthy. Perhaps that is a signal that we need to involve staff groups beyond the obvious ones of health, social work and education in our GIRFEC training and approach to ensure that we truly get it right for every child.
Furthermore, the increased knowledge and confidence on the part of parents and carers will, in itself, contribute to children’s safety. There is also the increase in staff capacity to deliver the scheme in terms of knowledge, understanding and skills and, in some cases, gaining a recognised qualification.
We are delighted with the scheme’s success and we commend RoSPA for the initiative. I know that it has not all been plain sailing and that there have been a few challenges along the way. However, we can learn from the challenges. I know that the evaluation report makes some suggestions about how we can build on the legacy of the project and I urge community planning partnerships to study and consider those suggestions. Even in times of financial challenge, there is a need to move towards a prevention and early intervention agenda.
I again thank Clare Adamson for her sponsorship of the debate and commend RoSPA for its work on the scheme. I also thank all the other members who have contributed so fully in the time that they have during a members’ business debate to make sure that we have a shared agenda not only to make Scotland the best place to grow up in but to reverse the unfortunate trends that we have seen and move us towards being one of the safest places to grow up in.
13:04 Meeting suspended.
14:30 On resuming—