Blogs

A public health approach means tackling an issue by preventing it from happening instead of treating it afterwards. Better to design and build safe pavements for people to walk on than fix broken bones from people falling over in the high street! To do this we need to look at the cause of the problem (an uneven pavement next to a busy road?) and may also need to understand what created the cause (a global shortage of tarmac or a company using cheaper materials to meet their budget?) so we can decide how best to address it (increase pavement budgets or close the walkway while we wait for more tarmac?). This gives us an opportunity to offer environmental solutions that work for whole communities and prevent other people from being hurt in future.

A blog by Dr Estelle Moore (Chair PPN London) & Claire Ruiz (Senior Programme Manager, Violence Reduction Programme).

London has implemented a world class pan-regional system of trauma care since 2010, resulting in improvements in patient outcomes, largely due to the restructure of the Major Trauma System that has optimised clinical care delivery (Cole et al, 2015)1.

The Darzi Fellowship is an academic programme supporting Fellows to lead a live piece of systems change work- the “Darzi Challenge”. My Darzi Challenge is to improve the anonymised data shared by London’s 28 Emergency Departments regarding assault related presentations through Information Sharing to Tackle Violence (ISTV). Information Sharing to Tackle Violence – London Datastore.

The 2023 global theme of International Women’s Day (IWD), Embrace Equity, is important to our work at The NHS London Violence Reduction Programme. It reminds us that preventing violence is a key element to achieving health equality in our communities across London. However, importantly recognising the role of women in helping to achieve our goals must be acknowledged.

At the London Violence Reduction Programme, we recognise that engaging the power of communities is a critical part of the work we do.

Hello, my name is Corinne Clarkson and I joined the NHS Violence Reduction programme last summer as a public health specialist after 15yrs as a community midwife most recently working with families traumatised by their experiences of domestic, sexual, wartime, torture and trafficking related violence. In clinical practice I saw how the impact ripples spread from each experience of violence through people’s mental health, intimate relationships, family functioning and expectations of the world. Trauma and violence are intertwined with each able to cause the other – and I am proud to now work on a programme which aims to break that cycle and reduce violence in our city.

The NHS London Violence Reduction Programme is supporting YourStance to recruit a volunteer network of healthcare professionals to teach haemorrhage control and basic life support skills to young Londoners to help tackle serious youth violence in local communities. We have supported Yourstance with their expansion across London boroughs from 2021. Yourstance is just one of the organisations we hope to work with in 2023 to support impact across communities in London. Here we interview YourStance Co-Director Helen Ormrod.