Local campaigners therefore believe that there is a strong case for hospital accident and emergency units and the police to work together to identify knife crime blackspots.

Reg outside A&E

And they point to the experience in Cardiff where information is routinely passed on to the police about locations where injuries caused by knife crime take place to back up their call for hospitals and police to work together.

As a result, police in Cardiff have been able to target the areas with the worst knife crime rates and have cut incidents by 40%.

“There is clear evidence that when hospitals help the police build up a picture of where knife crime is taking place, areas with high numbers of incidents can be tackled,” said Cllr Reg Shore, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Lincoln.

“The Cardiff model allows for the information to be handed on by hospitals anonymously. The result is therefore a fall in knife crime by nearly half. Unfortunately, 4 out of 5 hospitals in England are not passing on this vital information to the police. Amongst them is Lincoln County Hospital, who are one of the few NHS Trusts who have failed to respond at this time”

“I strongly urge a change in policy by The United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust so that the risk of knife crime in Lincolnshire can be cut. With knife crime increasing throughout the area, high-lighted by a number of tragic incidents, we cannot afford to be either complacent or sluggish about action on this matter.

Information about hospital trusts and their approach to knife crime was revealed in Freedom of Information requests and research carried out by the Liberal Democrats in Parliament.

I was more disappointed that Lincoln’s Hospital is one of them.

The aim of the tests is to reduce the number of people who enter hospital in order to get well but end up coming out worse off than they went in, and is therefore part of a system being introduced for registering NHS trusts as fit to practice. The Care Quality Commission gave unconditional registration to 367 trusts and congratulated the NHS as a whole on improvements in cleanliness and a reduction in the number of patients infected with MRSA, Clostridium Difficile and other superbugs. Unfortunately, Lincoln isn’t one of them and whilst it also may have reduced such infections, it has only received conditional registration because it didn’t yet fully observe the regulations for maintaining cleanliness and safety. It may therefore be at risk in sustaining any improvements.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals

Failure to comply may lead to fines or the trust may be forced to close wards or departments if they do not quickly improve.

Next year the bar will be raised so to gain registration, trusts will have to meet a wider range of standards, including satisfying patients about the quality of their care.

I fully accept that most patients who attend our local hospital are entirely satisfied with the very good standard of care offered to them and have nothing but praise for the excellent nursing and medical staff that we have there. I have recently talked with some of them and I believe that if Management were to listen to what they have to say then improvements on several fronts, including hygiene, would come even more quickly.

Residents within the United Lincolnshire Hospital’s catchment deserve to be served with the highest standards and generally they are, but this failure must be taken seriously and dealt with decisively.