5 AUDIT FINDINGS: TRAUMA

Surgeons are asked to document whether patients were admitted as a result of trauma and if the trauma was related to a fall, road traffic incidents, violence, or another cause.

More than one-fifth of patients (23.4%; 84/359) were admitted to hospital due to trauma. The most frequent causes of trauma were falls (60.7%; 51/84), road traffic incidents (21.4%; 18/84) or violence (13.1%; 11/84). More than 94.0% of falls occurred at a private home, care facility or hospital. Other fall locations were places of sport, recreation, farming or work (Figure 12).

*Other includes sport, recreation, farm, or work Reference: Appendix Data table 12

Of all road traffic incidents, 88.9% involved either a motor vehicle (13/18) or a motorcycle (3/18). Pedestrians were involved in traffic incidents but were too few to report (Appendix Data table 13). Public violence (45.5%; 5/11) and self-inflicted violence (36.4%; 4/11) were the main causes of trauma related to violence.