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On 31 May 2007 the Council of the European Union officially adopted the Council Recommendation on the prevention of injury and the promotion of safety. This is recorded in the Official Journal of the European Union 2007/C164/01 of July 18, 2007. (CELEX-Nr. 32007H0718)
The Recommendation is available in all languages of the EU. To find the version in your own language please go to http://www.eur-lex.europa.eu. Then search by doc-number (simple search) CELEX-number is 32007H0718.
The Recommendation is the result of many months of hard work by all parties concerned. Both the efforts of the Finnish and German Presidencies in helping to move the process of adopting the proposal for a Recommendation along, and the support and commitment of the Member States for reaching agreement on it, deserve special acknowledgement.
The Council unanimously backed the argument of the Commission that the burden of injuries in Europe has to be reduced. “For the EU–25 we are facing 13 billion EURO injury-related healthcare costs each year. The good news is that most injuries are preventable at rather low costs. Studies indicate that one EURO spent will result in ten EURO savings in medical costs. With the adoption of the Recommendation Members States do respond to this challenge! As we pursue the same objectives, we shall be able to reduce the burden of injuries in EU.”
The adoption of the Recommendation is a vital step in putting injury prevention and safety promotion higher on the policy agenda in the EU. Furthermore, it will provide adequate public legitimacy for further actions, notably, the elaboration of national action plans in the area of injury prevention and safety promotion.
To do so, the main focus of immediate EU action will be to further develop the Injury Database (IDB) on accidents and injuries with a view to achieving representative and comparable data within all Member States for the purpose of benchmarking and designing appropriate prevention policies, both at EU and national level. In addition, the Recommendation foresees a wider dissemination and implementation of prevention measures that have been proven to be successful in order to make efficient use of existing models of good practice in all Member States.
For further information please consult the background document.
Member States are recommended to:
(1) Develop a national injury surveillance and reporting system, which monitors the evolution of injury risks and the effects of prevention measures over time;
(2) Set up national plans for preventing accidents and injuries initiating interdepartmental co-operation;
(3) Ensure that injury prevention and safety promotion is introduced in a systematic way in vocational training of health care professionals.
The Commission is recommended to:
(1) Support a Community-wide injury surveillance exchange based on injury data provided by the Member States;
(2) Establish a Community-wide mechanism for the exchange of information on good practice and disseminate this information to relevant stakeholders;
(3) Provide Member States with the necessary evidence for inclusion of injury prevention knowledge into the vocational training of health professionals;
(4) Support the development of good practice and policy actions in relation to the seven priority areas.
The Commission is invited to support the development of good practices and policy actions in relation to the seven identified priority areas using the resources provided for in the Community Public Health Programme and successor programmes, the general framework for financing Community actions in support of consumer policy and the Framework Programme for Research.
The Commission is invited to carry out an evaluation report, four years after the adoption of this Recommendation, to determine whether the measures proposed are working effectively and to assess the need for further actions.
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