Major Trauma Centres: Youth Intervention Workers

Health and Social Care – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 March 2018.

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Photo of Sarah Jones Sarah Jones Labour, Croydon Central 12:00, 20 March 2018

If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of employing youth intervention workers at major trauma centres.

Photo of Jackie Doyle-Price Jackie Doyle-Price The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

I fully support the role that youth workers play in supporting vulnerable young people. We are working with the Home Office, which supports the charity Redthread to develop its work embedding youth workers in hospital emergency departments to intervene with young victims of violence. Redthread currently operates in London’s four major trauma centres, and will be launching in Nottingham and Birmingham this year. Redthread is also working with academics to assess the impact of its youth violence intervention programme.

Photo of Sarah Jones Sarah Jones Labour, Croydon Central

Knife crime continues to soar, and Members from across this House believe that we need a new approach. Having youth workers in hospital A&Es is proven to work, and, as the Minister says, Redthread is in some of our hospitals around the country. It would cost as little as £6 million a year to put youth workers into all our major trauma centres, so will she find the funding?

Photo of Jackie Doyle-Price Jackie Doyle-Price The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

First, I commend the hon. Lady for the work she does on tackling knife crime and I know it is an issue close to her heart. The work with Redthread is being co-ordinated with the Home Office, and I would not want to allocate its expenditure, any more than it should be allocating mine.