Abstract
The Inter-Departmental Committee on the Rehabilitation of Persons Injured by Accidents has issued its final report (H.M. Stationery Office. 3s. 6d. net). The report refers to the loss to the community resulting from injuries by all classes of accidents as being “enormous”, and the cost must run into many millions of pounds annually. Fractures in particular are dealt with, and the Committee recommends in the first instance concentration on the provision of fracture services, and concludes that the treatment of fractures can be satisfactorily carried out only in specially organized hospital departments. Some 15 per cent of all fractures are due to road traffic, and 29 per cent to industrial, accidents, and the Committee recommends a revision of the Road Traffic Act whereby the limits imposed on the amounts recoverable for the treatment of road accidents may be abolished. the Committee considers that every hospital with a medical school should have an organized fracture service, and that a period of training in a fracture department should be an obligatory part of medical students’ training. Questions of organization and finance of fracture services are considered, and under the Workmen's Compensation Acts it is recommended, with certain reservations, that so long as the patient requires treatment by the fracture service he should continue to receive compensation as for total incapacity.
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The Toll of Accidents. Nature 144, 504 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144504b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144504b0