Parents are being asked to speak to their children about water safety after new data revealed an 85% increase in the number of child drownings in England between 2019 and 2022.
There were 20 drownings in 2019 to 2020 compared with 37 in 2021 to 2022, according to a report published on Thursday by the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) team at the University of Bristol.
The deaths occurred most commonly in inland bodies of water, such as a river or lake, or in the bath and increased over the three years.
Researchers and the Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS) say the “alarming increase” in drownings, especially among low-income and ethnically diverse children, point to a need for greater government involvement.
“It is essential that water safety education and experience for children should be taken forward regionally and nationally,” said Lee Heard, charity director at RLSS UK. “There is a requirement to nationally revise and reform the current approach to swimming and water safety education.
“We need to tackle the clear disparity for low-income and ethnically diverse children who are being missed by the current statutory efforts and are overrepresented in child-drowning deaths,” he added.
This is the first data to classify child-drowning fatalities by ethnicity and deprivation. It shows that the risk of drowning was 3.5 times higher for children of black or black British ethnicity than white. It also shows that the risk of drowning was twice as high for children from more deprived areas.
Research by Sports England has previously found that 80% of black children and 78% of asian children cannot swim. Overall, one in four children leave primary school unable to swim.
Without intervention, the charity warns, this could worsen to six in 10 children by 2025 thanks to recent pool closures during Covid, the cost of living crisis and the threat of further pool closures.
Karen Luyt, the director of the National Child Mortality Database and professor of neonatal medicine at the University of Bristol, said: “Drowning is consistently recognised as a highly preventable public health challenge, with mostly low-cost solutions, such as installing barriers to control access to water hazards, supervision for younger children and teaching school-age children basic water competency.”
The report also found that traumatic injuries and violence remain a substantial cause of childhood deaths: 644 children aged up to 18 in England died of traumatic injuries between 2019 and 2022; of these, 211 died because of a vehicle collision, 160 died because of violence and maltreatment, and 84 died by drowning.
A further 189 died because of other traumatic injuries such as drug or alcohol poisoning, suffocation, falls, choking, foreign object consumption, fires, electrocution, falling objects and dog attacks.
Deaths due to violence and maltreatment were higher for males and children living in the most deprived neighbourhoods, with children and young people of black or black British ethnicity, as well as those from urban areas and London in particular, facing the greatest risk.
Children under one were at five times greater risk of death due to violence and maltreatment than the risk for all children. Where it was known, the perpetrator was a parent or partner of a parent for all children under 10 who died due to violence and maltreatment.
The report authors make recommendations with the aim of reducing these numbers in future years through increased public awareness and initiatives by schools, government, charities, local councils, the NHS and professional bodies.
