Housebuilding: Accidents in the Home

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

We welcome the work of RoSPA and take note of its design standard, Safer by Design: A Framework to Reduce Serious Accidental Injury in New-Build Homes, which I have here and have read. We are developing a programme to review the building regulations guidance and will carefully consider any relevant recommendations from RoSPA. However, the noble Lord makes a more important point: the figures are pretty awful. We have a figure of 255,000 fall-related emergency hospital admissions per year for older people, and the annual cost to the UK of hip fractures is estimated to be around £2 billion, so this is an important matter.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)]

My Lords, accidents in the home are bound to increase with the rapidly ageing population. Does the Minister agree that if homes today are not built to accessible and adaptable standards, it could be very difficult even to fit grab rails in the bathroom, for example?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Baroness is right. That is why we are reviewing all the schedules, particularly in her case Part M of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010, which sets requirements for access and use of old buildings. We are looking very carefully at this, because it is extremely important, when people move into their homes and then become disabled, that there is that adaptability.