Personal Injuries (Statistics)

HC Deb 09 July 1981 vol 8 c202W

Mr. Tilley

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services for which categories of personal injuries he keeps statistics.

Mr. Rossi

There are, held centrally, three main sources of information relating to personal injuries. These sources are not mutually exclusive.

Data are collected relating to personal injuries which are industrially caused and give rise to awards of the following benefits:

1. (i) Industrial injury benefit, categorised by industry, nature of resultant injury (using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)) and external cause of accident (1 per cent. sample of awards).
2. (ii) Industrial disablement benefit, categorised by industry, nature of injury (using the ICD) and degree of resultant loss of faculty (10 per cent. sample of awards).
3. (iii) Industrial death benefit, categorised by injury and cause of death (using the ICD) (all awards).

Information on personal injuries resulting in an in-patient stay in a National Health Service non-psychiatric hospital is available through the hospital in-patient inquiry, which is based on a 10 per cent. sample of hospital discharges and deaths. Classification of the injuries is made in accordance with the ICD and provides information on the nature of injury. Information is also collected on a limited range of places of occurrence.

Information on deaths resulting from personal injury is collected by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. This is also classified using the ICD according to the nature of the injury and additionally by the external cause of the accident.