Citation

Prasad A. Lancet 2021; 398(10316): 2067.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02655-6

PMID

34863342

Abstract

In 2019, Martin Griffiths, consultant trauma surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust in London, UK, was appointed the NHS's first Clinical Director for Violence Reduction in London and then National Clinical Director for Violence Reduction for NHS England and NHS Improvement. In both roles, Griffiths leads and coordinates the strategy and delivery of health-led programmes to reduce interpersonal violence. In part, his insights come from his own early life experiences. He describes his younger self as "a very naive but streetwise south London boy" who grew up on a council estate in Lewisham with a single mother who was a health-care assistant. "She worked three jobs looking after me and my sister", he recalls. "I meet lots of parents whose kids have been injured who are trying their hardest to do their best for their kids, but they haven't got the resource; they haven't got the time. They're working two, three jobs like my mum was." Griffiths set up the first UK hospital-ward-based violence reduction service at Barts Health in 2015, and over his career as a trauma surgeon has seen "that trauma care often affects the disadvantaged more so because they have less resource, less support, less agency".

Language: en