Gas safety group to publish historic CO incident data

The Gas Safety Trust (GST) is to make twenty years-worth of data on carbon monoxide (CO) incidents available on the CO Portal, to improve understanding of the issue which claims around 40 lives every year.

The Trust is in the process of developing a searchable database for the online portal on CO poisoning ready for launch next spring and will be used by researchers, parliamentarians and policy makers, and will be updated by the GST annually.

The GST has been producing the downstream incident data report on CO cases for the last twenty years, but the most recent edition published in October will be the last in its current form before moving to the online portal.

The CO Portal was created by the GST in response to a recommendation in the 2011 All Party Parliamentary Gas Safety Group report which noted that sources of information for CO were disparate and sometimes hard to find.

On launching CO Portal GST chairman Chris Bielby said: “Providing access to CO related information and data is an essential component of our strategy to improve knowledge and understanding of CO in the UK.”

The portal already has three sections detailing legislation, standards and normative documents; an academic references database; and data and documents that have been funded by GST grants and produced by others.

According to NHS figures, more than 200 people in the UK are taken to hospital every year with suspected CO poisoning, which leads to around 40 deaths.

The GST said a third phase is in the development pipeline, possibly focusing on European data.