“Every day in the UK, five people die on roads and about 60 more are seriously injured” There is no escaping the fact that road traffic collisions change lives, not only for the people involved but for the families and support networks that surround them. Brake are a charity that carry out amazing work in promoting road safety awareness including running Road Safety Week every November. However, the reality is that road collisions do happen and we need to be prepared to deal with the aftermath.

As important as it is to consider preparing documents, such as Lasting Powers of Attorney, to ensure that your finances and health decisions are kept in order should you no longer be able to look after your own affairs, it is equally important to ensure that you have the right people in place to do so.

The World Federation for Mental Health established World Mental Health Day on 10 October 1992 and this years campaign is centered around ‘young people and mental health in a changing world.’

As Part of National Road Victim Month, Robyn Mayoh, Court of Protection Solicitor at Ramsdens has been looking at the impact of injuries on decision making.

A recent freedom of information request has revealed that the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) carried out over 40% more investigations in the 2017/2018 financial year in to the actions of attorneys and deputies compared with the previous year. These investigations take place when there are allegations or concerns of abuse of such roles.

Recently, Clover House in Halifax has been named as one of the worst care homes in the country. A Care Quality Commission report dated 22nd May 2018 rated Clover House as inadequate in the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led categories. The home supports up to 39 residents with dementia or other mental health issues yet the CQC found that there were not enough staff, mealtimes were chaos, staff were maneuvering residents in an unsafe and inappropriate manner and alarm systems which are used to alert staff to any falls were not being used. The CQC found that residents were not getting the correct nutrition and hydration that they needed.

This week has been Child Safety Awareness Week run by the Child Action Prevention Trust. Throughout the course of the week we have run a series of blogs focusing on child safety and how it can be enhanced. Risks to children exist in everyday life whether that be by way of accident, injury, exposure to content in social media or other online resource or more targeted harm in the form of physical or sexual violence.

This week we continue to support Child Safety Week run by Child Accident Prevention Trust to raise awareness of the risks of child accidents and how they can be prevented. Accidents involving children can easily happen inside or outside of the home. There are risks in everything we do but most parents and guardians hope to find the right balance in order to allow children to grow and explore their surroundings. Many accidents are preventable but unfortunately still happen as a result of the negligence of others.