NHS highlights dangers of hair straighteners

A new campaign has been launched by NHS Greater Glasgow and Strathclyde, warning of the dangers that can arise from leaving hair straighteners unattended near small children.

The health service revealed that Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children treated 36 babies and toddlers for burns sustained by straighteners in 2007.

Additionally, in the first seven months of 2009, it treated 28 children for straightener-related burns.

Sharon Ramsay, burns nurse specialist at the Sick Kids Hospital, told the BBC: “Very young children, mainly in the zero-three age group are picking up, sitting on or standing on hair straighteners. Injuries range from superficial burns to severe, deep dermal or full thickness burns.”

In other NHS News this week, research commissioned by the General Medical Council found that one in ten prescriptions written in England contains an error, the Telegraph reported.