posted November 21, 2009 03:43 PM         

Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.

New guidance drawn up at the request of the Department of Health urges councils and other public sector bodies to “collect data” on properties where children are thought to be at “greatest risk of unintentional injury”.

Council staff will then be tasked with overseeing the installation of safety devices in homes, including smoke alarms, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks.

The draft guidance by a committee at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has been criticised as intrusive and further evidence of the “creeping nanny state”.

Until now, councils have made only a limited number of home inspections to check on building work and in extreme cases where the state of a house is thought to pose a serious risk to public health.

Nice also recommends the creation of a new government database to allow GPs, midwives and other officials who visit homes to log health and safety concerns they spot.

The guidance aims to “encourage all practitioners who visit families and carers with children and young people aged under 15 to provide home safety advice and, where necessary, conduct a home risk assessment”. It continues: “If possible, they should supply and install home safety equipment.”

The proposals have been put out to consultation and, if approved, will be implemented next year.

Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is a huge intervention into family life which will be counter-productive.

“Good parents will feel the intrusion of the state in their homes and bad parents will now have someone else to blame if they don’t bring up their children in a sensible, safe environment.”

posted November 21, 2009 05:11 PM         

kidding aside i would hate to see what the visiting nurse - midwife i had in the early 80s would say to something like this - i remember one day my daughter fell on the stairs just before she (nurse) arrived and i was paranoid that she would find me neglectful or abusive, especially with the cartoon-like bump my child had on her head!
she came in, looked at both of us and said:
"you need to keep calm, you will scare her and make it worse. babies' heads are "made of rubber" and it's a good thing since they ALL hit their heads... a lot!!"

where i live some of these things are already required - smoke alarms are in every apartment i have seen, you just take out the battery because it WILL go off every time you roast a bird...