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Patients & Visitors

Major Trauma

The Royal United Hospitals Trust is one of six designated Trauma Units in the Severn Major Trauma Network.

The Severn Major Trauma Network was set up to manage and influence care for seriously injured patients from injury to rehabilitation. The network serves both adult and children's major trauma and has an adult population of around 2.30 million and children's population of approximately 810,000.

The local Adult Major Trauma Centre is North Bristol NHS Trust and local Paediatric Major Trauma Centre is Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

The ambulance service will triage the most seriously injured patients directly to a Major Trauma Centre depending on the regional Major Trauma Triage Tool. Some patients will present to the RUH initially and then require onwards transfer due to occult injuries, clinical instability or geographical location of the incident.

Annually, the RUH cares for around 500 major trauma patients. The majority of these patients are older and/or frail. The most common mechanism of injury is a fall from less than 2 metres. Brain and chest injuries are the most common injury pattern.

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