THE Royal Berkshire Hospital is spearheading an innovative health and safety campaign to slash spiralling numbers of patients ending up in its casualty ward.

Doctors and nurses at the trust's Emergency Department are the first of three hospitals in Britain piloting the Kiosk Injury Surveillance System (KISS) in a bid to reduce the number of accidents at work, in the home and in public.

The project, funded by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), encourages patients treated for non-life threatening injuries to fill in details of their accident on a touch screen computer.

The busy department treats up to 300 patients a day - 80% of them walking wounded - but RoSPA deputy chief executive Errol Taylor warns there is a 5% increase year on year of patients visiting casualty, with the under fives and over 75s the most accident prone groups. He added: "We need to reduce the amount of accidents and the more quality information we can get the better we can pitch our safety education campaigns. Prevention is far less expensive than treatment and this is a very cost effective way of sharing information. What we can't afford is more and more NHS staff filling out forms. "

The machine, which cost �4,000, was installed two weeks ago and two others will be set up at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and in Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire.

The picture-based survey takes around five minutes to complete and questions range from when and where the incident happened to whether the patient was under the influence of drugs or alcohol and if safety equipment or a first aid kit was available.

Organisers want to collect at least 400 records from the Royal Berks before deciding to launch the idea across the country.

Emergency Department consultant Liza Keating said: "People are being seen in a timely fashion here but the hospital is overstretched. But this is going to be a massive help and hopefully they can use the data to see if there are trends and can find the mechanisms to prevent injury."