Nursery World - Mind that pool

The possibility of a child drowning in a hotel swimming pool is unlikely to occur to most parents and carers as they leaf through holiday brochures featuring sunny Mediterranean resorts. But holiday companies need to improve the safety of children abroad, says Jo Sibert, professor of community child health at the University of Wales and one of the authors of a recent study in the British Medical Journal. 'There need to be lifeguards at hotel pools where most of the deaths have occurred,' she says. A spokesman from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents adds, 'If parents choose a holiday villa with its own pool, they need to be on guard 24 hours a day. There may be French doors open, and toddlers can wander out early in the morning.'

'There need to be lifeguards at hotel pools where most of the deaths have occurred,' she says. A spokesman from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents adds, 'If parents choose a holiday villa with its own pool, they need to be on guard 24 hours a day. There may be French doors open, and toddlers can wander out early in the morning.'

Researchers at the University of Wales College of Medicine, the Royal Life Saving Society and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents compared deaths by drowning in children aged 0-14 years during the two years 1988 and 1989 and the two years 1998 and 1999. The Government does not routinely collect these statistics and few studies have been done.

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