Road Safety Trust funded project wins international road safety award

Professor Tim Nutbeam, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, and Lead Consultant for the Devon Air Ambulance, along with colleagues within emergency care and the National Fire Chiefs Council have been presented with the Premier Prince Michael International Road Safety Award. The prize is for their innovation into extrication methods following a motor vehicle collision.

Funded by The Road Safety Trust, it explored a different approach to how emergency services respond to motor vehicle collisions to reduce both deaths and disabilities.

Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards recognise outstanding achievement and innovation world-wide. Each year the most outstanding examples of international road safety initiatives are given public recognition through the scheme.

Last year there were 128,209 casualties and 1,558 deaths in Great Britain caused by motor vehicle collisions . In the same period, over 7,000 patients needed to be assisted to leave the vehicle by a process known as extrication . During this process, which has been the “gold standard” since the 1960’s patients may remain in the vehicles for on average 30 minutes as slow, careful movements are used; to avoid potential spinal injuries.

Tim and his team have found that the ‘gold standard’ may be increasing the rate of death and injury and that there is now a case to change it. Their research recommends that self-extrication should be delivered wherever possible with the extrication goal of minimising entrapment time.

Professor Tim Nutbeam, Consultancy in Emergency Medicine said:

“We are extremely grateful to have been recognised for this prestigious award as it provides us with further opportunity to spread the message about our research. It adds the missing piece to our jigsaw to improve patient outcomes and saves lives both in the UK and internationally.”

Sonya Hurt, CEO of The Road Safety Trust said:

“We are thrilled that, Tim Nutbeam and colleagues have been recognised, the Prince Michael Awards are the benchmark of road safety and to have been able to fund a project that has been recognised by them is fantastic. We know that the research that Tim and team conducted will be influential in reducing both deaths and serious injuries on the UK roads and are delighted that they are being recognised internationally as well. We look forward to the practical application of this research being used by emergency services.”

More information on the project here