The National Violence Surveillance Network (NVSN) demonstrates trustworthiness through the qualifications and expertise of its multi-disciplinary research team, long established partnerships with NHS A&E departments and rigorous governance throughout the production of its statistics. Ethical and peer review and information security procedures and commitment to openness and transparency ensure its methods and findings are credible and accessible.
“The National Violence Surveillance Network team is committed to delivering Trustworthiness, Quality and Value in its practice. This is demonstrated by rigorous governance, robust methods and a steadfast commitment to transparency. This enables us to produce trusted evidence that shines a light on the true scale of violence. We turn high-quality data into insights that inform policy, prevention and public understanding, demonstrating the profound public value that can be achieved when statistics are used to improve lives and support better decision-making.”
Professor Jonathan Shepherd CBE FMedSci FLSW, project lead from Cardiff University’s Violence Research Group
NVSN routinely and continuously collects data when patients attend A&E, minimising recall bias, and uses robust statistical methods to ensure its findings reflect the incidence of violence in England and Wales. This approach improves the accuracy and representativeness of violence statistics; the network’s findings consistently align with those of the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).
The NVSN demonstrates strong value under the code of practice through its wide public, policy and research impact. The use of A&E data to measure violence was prompted by the discovery, first in Professor Shepherd’s PhD, that police records capture less than half of violence requiring emergency hospital treatment.
NVSN’s annual outputs are widely disseminated through media and official statistics, including ONS publications, supporting use across government, the NHS and policing. The data underpin the Cardiff Model for Violence Prevention – the use of A&E data for prevention as well as measurement – and inform evaluation by the violence research group of interventions which include street CCTV and alcohol price increases.