§ Mr. Berminghamasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many accidents have been reported where injury has been caused by either (1) people falling through or (2) coming into contact with (i) glass doors, (ii) glass panelling and (iii) windows internal and external and the glass breaking, in whole or part, in the years 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 to the latest date available.
§ Mr. Howard[pursuant to his reply, 13 February 1986, c. 5210]: The information is not available in exactly the form requested. The only detailed information readily available covers accidents in and around the home. The home accident surveillance system collects information on non-fatal home accidents from a rolling sample of 20 hospitals in England and Wales. Analysis of the cases reported by these 20 hospitals yields the following figures:
Home accidents recording involving Total non-fatal home accidents (of all types) recorded in HASS *Glass doors Glass Windows Other glass panes 1980 1,045 858 123 76,245 1981 1,155 980 153 87,900 1982 901 879 98 77,071 1983 1,246 1,069 202 98,878 1984 1,431 1,171 264 110,254 1985† Figures available shortly 115,000 * Excluding cupboards.
† Provisional.
It is not known whether all these accidents involved the glass itself, nor whether the glass actually broke. However a more detailed analysis of the data for 1984 identified 2,001 cases in the HASS sample in which glass was directly involved (1,013 doors, 728 windows and 260 other panes). This means that at least 27,000 patients were 588W treated in hospitals nationally. Over 90 per cent. of these injuries were cuts, suggesting that the glass did actually break; 23 per cent. were the results of falls.