§ Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will take immediate steps to facilitate the coordination by local authorities, police and hospitals of their databases regarding cycling accidents; and if he will make a statement.
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§ Mr. Peter BottomleyA common reporting system (Stats 19) is used for all road accidents involving personal injury by police, local authorities, and central Government, who have access to a common database.
Hospital databases are the responsibility of area health authorities and these identify patients who are road accident victims. Hospital in-patient records contain confidential personal information and therefore cannot be made generally available. Suitably anonymised data have been extracted from these records and matched with accident circumstances recorded on Stats 19. Work on this is proceeding at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory.
Cycle accidents, particularly those involving no other vehicle, tend to be under-reported on Stats 19. Where cyclists are detained as inpatients following an accident, this will be recorded by the local health authority.