School rugby risks 'overlooked'?
Wednesday April 22nd, 2015
A UK government plan to boost the numbers of schoolchildren playing rugby could pose serious risks, it was claimed today.
Professor
Allyson Pollock of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and colleagues
explain in The BMJ that: "The high rates
of injury in rugby union and rugby league for professional and amateur
players, including children, are well established and a cause for medical
concern."
About 12% of child and adolescent rugby players sustain an injury severe enough to require at least seven days' absence from playing in a season, they add. These injuries include concussion, which can be mismanaged on the rugby field with fatal consequences.
The authors state: "The UK government has selected rugby union and rugby league among the five sports it will focus on to increase the prominence of competitive sport in schools in England.
"Announcing the coalition government's new youth sports strategy, Jeremy Hunt promised to 'work with sports such as football, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, and tennis to establish at least 6,000 partnerships between schools and local sports clubs by 2017'."
But they warn that most rugby injury surveillance and prevention programmes established since the late 2000s have not been evaluated. Therefore, "the safety of the game, effectiveness of prevention programmes, and recent changes to the laws of the game are unknown".
As children are more susceptible to injuries such as concussion, and often take longer to recover fully, the government's plan is worrying, say the experts.
"Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child governments have a duty to protect children from risks of injury," they point out. "The UK government should ensure the safety and effectiveness of sports before proceeding with its plans to increase participation in a high risk collision sport such as rugby."
Freitag, A. et al. Rugby injury surveillance and prevention programmes: are they effective? BMJ 22 April 2015 doi: 10.1136/bmj.h1587 [abstract]
Tags: Child Health | Fitness | UK News
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