Reducing violence through data: Emergency Department data sharing e-learning; DH Guidance on information sharing

A&E data sharing e-learning

An e-learning resource - Reducing Violence in your Community: Emergency Department Datasharing - has been released to support data sharing between the Accident and Emergency Departments (EDs) and Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs). In addition, an ED Datasharing report and a number of data sharing case studies are available.

The 30 minute e-learning course is designed to support better understanding of what information sharing is and how it can be used to support violence reduction. It may be useful for ED staff - from receptionists to consultants, CSP staff - from managers to analysts, Police and Crime Commissioners, Directors of Public Health, Staff in Clinical Commissioning Groups or Health Wellbeing Boards.

Guidance on information sharing to reduce violence

The Department of Health have released broader guidance on Information Sharing to Tackle Violence (pdf). It highlights how Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) can reduce violence in their community by encouraging A&Es to collect and share information on time, type and location of assault.

It identifies that CSPs, made up of local authorities, the Police and other local agencies, can share information to identify where violence is happening and inform local interventions to tackle it. It suggests interventions such as restricting alcohol licensing and targeting policing can have a big impact on community safety.

Securing and sharing good local data has long been a key challenge of effective local alcohol strategy to reduce related crime and disorder. As of this year, health authorities have also become a 'responsible authority' for local licensing decisions and the guidance states:

"Health bodies can present health-related evidence (where relevant to the licensing objectives), such as data on violence-related A&E attendances and ambulance callouts, to licensing authorities." (p.7)

Importantly health is still not a licensing objective, therefore any evidence still has to meet existing objectives such as prevention of crime and disorder. Many health authorities appear to have been struggling to contribute any new data to the process - alcohol-related A&E data has historically been difficult to collect, and ambulance of police data often not specific or detailed enough. The "Cardiff model" of A&E data sharing (or full report) was considered a groundbreaking project in this area.

A list of Home Office factsheets on the licensing changes are available.