BAPRAS supports National Burns Awareness Day

Every day 130 children are seen in emergency departments with burns injuries across England and Wales, while scalds result in over 1,900 hospital attendances in the under 5s every year.

Burns and scalds can cause serious physical and psychological injury and scars can often last a lifetime, but the vast majority of injuries are preventable. Indeed, the most common causes of burns and scalds in the under 5s are:

•  Scalds from hot drinks, bath water, boiling kettles, and pans
•  Contact with hot household appliances such as cooker hobs, hair straighteners and irons
•  Burns from hot heating appliances such as fires, log burners, radiators and pipes

As part of National Burns Awareness Day (21 October 2015), BAPRAS supports the below ‘top tips’ on how to prevent burns and scalds as well as first aid guidance from the British Burns Association (BBA).

For more information, see this useful toolkit from the Children's Burns Trust and BAPRAS’ patient information guide on burns here

Preventing Burns- Top Tips

Hot appliances
•  Keep hot appliances out of children’s reach.
•  Check hair straighteners and irons are cooling down somewhere safe.
•  Ensure appliance cables are not left hanging down.
•  Use secure fire guard screens in front of open fires, log burners, heaters & radiators, and take care with children around barbecues.

Fires
•  Keep candles, matches and lighters out of children’s sight and reach.
•  Have a smoke alarm on each level of your home, and check it is working once a week.
•  Make a plan for how you would escape from your home if there was a fire, and practice it with your family.
•  Be careful if your children are wearing flammable materials, including fancy dress clothes, near flames.

Sun
•  Slip on a T shirt
•  Slap on a sunhat
•  Slop on sun block

Preventing Scalds- Top Tips

Bathroom
•  Always run the cold water first in the bath or sink before adding hot water.
•  Check the temperature with your elbow or a thermometer.

Kitchen
•  Point the handles of saucepans away from the side of the hob.
•  Move kettles out of children’s reach.

Hot Drinks
•  Put all hot drinks out of the reach of children.
•  Do not drink hot drinks with a baby on your lap or pass hot drinks over them.

First Aid- Do's and Dont's

Do
•  Stop the heat.
•  Remove the hot liquid.
•  Put any fire on the child out - making the child stop, drop to the ground, and roll on the ground.
•  Cool the burn with running cold tap water for 20 minutes and remove all clothing and jewellery if it is easy to take off.
•  Call for help – 999, 111 or local GP for advice.
•  Cover with cling film or a sterile non-fluffy dressing or cloth.
Keep the child as warm as possible while you are doing this.

Do not
•  Use anything else on the skin. This includes butter, nappy cream, ice, toothpaste, turmeric or tea leaves.
•  Try to burst the blisters.