In light of the worrying spate of serious knife crime incidents - which have led to ChronicleLive's Stop Knives Taking Lives campaign - ambulance service leaders in the North East reflected on how their crews had attended more stabbings recently than ever before.
Speaking at a North East Ambulance Service board meeting last week, outgoing Director of Quality, Patient Safety, Innovation & Improvement Sarah Rushbrooke spoke of how recent months had seen ambulance service staff make a "significantly increased" number of safeguarding referrals. She explained this tied into a range of factors including the rises in child poverty.
But she also spoke of how ambulance crews were often first on the scene of awful incidents like those which have resulted in the deaths of youngsters like Holly Newton, Gordon Gault and Tomasz Olesczak. She said: "We have seen more stabbings than we have ever seen before, especially among young people. And we know our crews are the first at these scenes. They do get mandatory training - and wraparound care for them is really important."
Read more: 'We all have a collective responsibility to tackle knife crime'
She explained that the impact - and danger - to crews was important to note, and added: "The recent cases have been in areas where we wouldn't expect these issues - and in these areas it becomes even more challenging for our crews.
"It does seem to be that there is an increasing cultural issue - and that carrying knives seems to be more common in our region now. As such we need to support our crews to know that they may be going into situations where there are knives."
Asked if NEAS has "anything to learn from organisations that have had more experience of this" such as counterparts in areas like London, the executive added: "The national safeguarding group has a lot shared learning through the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives."
The ambulance service's board also reflected on how - as well as meaning the region's young people are now at greater risk of knife crime than ever before - this issue ties into increased danger for ambulance crews who attend potentially volatile crime scenes. This comes as there has also been increased reporting of aggression towards the emergency services.
ChronicleLive has launched the Stop Knives Taking Lives campaign to work with community partners and the emergency services to stop the worrying rise in knife crime in our region. Northumbria Police's Assistant Chief Constable, Brad Howe, has welcomed the campaign.
He said this week: "We back The Chronicle’s knife crime campaign and welcome initiatives which encourage communities to come together to help keep our region safe.
“As a society, we all have a collective responsibility to tackle knife crime.
“Whether that’s as families sitting down to talk about the dangers of carrying a knife or reporting someone you know to be in possession of a weapon – your actions today could help to save the life of a loved one."
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