Doctor: Sharp rise in number of stabbing victims

London: One of Britain's leading trauma surgeons has said one in three of his accident and emergency patients is now a stabbing victim.

Karim Brohi, a consultant surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, said the proportion of injuries from knives and guns was now on a level with - if not greater than - cities such as Los Angeles or Chicago.

He described how, on occasions, the wards in his hospital resembled "a war zone" with some patients being treated for their second or third knife wound.

And - in a letter to the Evening Standard - Brohi, along with two senior trauma medics, called for more prevention strategies to solve the underlying causes of knife crime.

He said there was a real "potential" for surgeons and doctors to help in the fight against crime through a variety of schemes - such as doctors visiting schools to talk about knife injuries.

Brohi spoke out as an Evening Standard survey showed how casualty wards across the capital were bearing the brunt of the rise in knife crime and treating hundreds of victims each year A snapshot survey of wards reveals at least 424 knife victims have been treated in hospital for stab wounds so far this year, 227 of which were serious cases. The true number of victims is even higher because each hospital records cases of stabbings in different ways.

Some major trauma hospitals, such as the Royal London, show significant increases in the number of people being treated for major stab wounds.