TREATING the victims of violence costs the NHS £400 million a year, Scotland's chief medical officer said yesterday as he discussed efforts to tackle the problem.
Dr Harry Burns said the number of attacks in Scotland was higher than that recorded by official police statistics, with A&E departments seeing the true reflection of levels of violence.
MSPs on the Scottish Parliament's health and sport committee
said the cost of violence to the NHS was "shocking".
Dr Burns, discussing his annual report on health in Scotland, also highlighted inequalities between the most affluent and most deprived sections of the community.
The report said violence in Scotland was a chronic problem, stretching back decades.
Glasgow has the highest murder rate in Europe, while the level of knife killings is 3.5 times higher than that of England and Wales.
Dr Burns said violence was estimated to cost between 3 and 6 per cent of the NHS budget – about £400 million. Mary Scanlon, Tory MSP for the Highlands and Islands, said this figure was the "most shocking" aspect of the report, with a substantial underestimate in the levels of violence reported.
"That's only the financial cost and there must be other social costs," she said.
"I'm shocked at the figures, but I'm glad it's being quantified."
Dr Burns said: "We know lots of incidents of violence are not reported to the police. By counting the number of cases that come up in the A&E departments we know that the numbers of assaults is greater than the police figures."
In many instances this was because victims wanted to sort the problem out themselves, he added.
Dr Burns praised the work of the Violence Reduction Unit in tackling the issue.
"They've shown that to a large extent you can predict who the perpetrators and the victims of violence are, when it will happen and even the streets in which most of it happens," he said.
"They've adopted the approach that violence is a public health problem."
Dr Burns said a programme was being devised to ensure more effective intervention with young people who were at risk of falling into a violent lifestyle – mainly because of bad family upbringing.
The youngsters would go on to be excluded from school and get into "alcohol and drugs".
Dr Burns said: "They wander the centre of our cities at night, particularly at weekends, and that's where gang fights start."
Karyn McCluskey, deputy head of the Violence Reduction Unit, said the cost of violence went beyond the NHS.
"As a country, we need to be bolder, more innovative and less tolerant of violence. People of Scotland need to say enough is enough," she said.
Dr Burns also highlighted the need to target NHS resources.
"I'm a believer in targeting services to meet need," he added. "You try to tackle the most deprived areas."
The full article contains 483 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
