NCEPOD: Trauma - Who Cares? - London Health Programmes

CHAPTER 1 - Data overviewFigure 2. Age range of patient sample by gender100Number of patients908070605040302010MaleFemale00 -56 -1011 -1516 -2021 -2526 -3031 -3536 -4041 -4546 -5051 -55Age (years)56 -6061 -6566 -7071 -7576 -8081 -8586 -9091 -95Figure 2 shows the age range analysed by gender. The meanage for males was 38 and mean age for females 44. Therewas a peak in frequency for males aged 16-25.Of the patients in the study 56.3% (442/785) were involved ina road traffi c collision (RTC) (Table 1).Table 1. Mechanism of injuryNumber of patients %RTC (driver/passenger) 319 40.6RTC (pedestrian) 123 15.7Fall from height 136 17.3Assault 72 9.2Industrial/agricultural 21 2.7Sport/leisure 18 2.3Self harm 15 1.9Other 81 10.3Subtotal 785Not recorded 10Total 795Day and time of arrivalThe number of severely injured patients presenting to theemergency department peaked on Friday and Saturday(Figure 3).The rise in number of patients on Friday and Saturday waslargely due to an increase in patients arriving at night (‘outof hours’) at the weekend (see Table 2). Daytime admissionswere largely constant and were actually lower than theweekly average on Friday and Saturday. The mean age of thepatients who presented out of hours on Friday, Saturday andSunday was considerably lower than the remainder of thepopulation: 33.5 years compared to 42.3 years.22