We welcome the introduction of new UK-wide Concussion Guidelines for Grassroots Sport, which was announced today by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS] and the Sport and Recreation Alliance.
The development of these new guidelines has been led by the Sport and Recreation Alliance, Professor James Calder, chair of the expert drafting group, and Laurence Geller, the Government’s Adviser on Concussion in Sport, and they have been created to help players, coaches, parents, schools, National Governing Bodies and sports administrators to identify, manage and prevent the issue.
The new UK-wide Concussion Guidelines are designed to support those playing grassroots sport to:
• RECOGNISE the signs of concussion
• REMOVE anyone suspected of being concussed immediately
• RETURN safely to daily activity, education/work and sport
Concussion management, identification and treatment is vitally important for the health and wellbeing of everyone playing sport. We produced our own Concussion Guidelines for English Football in 2015, and since then have produced multiple resources such as promotional materials, videos and educational tools to help increase uptake and understanding of the guidelines and to improve player welfare across every level of the game. These guidelines, which were designed in collaboration with the FA Expert Concussion Panel and other leading experts, are mandated across the Premier League, EFL, Barclays Women’s Super League and Barclays Women’s Championship.
We continue to monitor new research and medical consensus in this area. The new UK-wide Concussion Guidelines for Grassroots Sport will be fully reviewed and, where required, enhancements will be made to the current FA Concussion Guidelines, working closely with the FA Expert Concussion Panel, to ensure they are consistent with the all-sport version and continue to meet the highest standard.
Our Head of Medicine, Dr Charlotte Cowie, said: “We wholeheartedly welcome today’s news from the DCMS and the Sport and Recreation Alliance to introduce UK-wide concussion guidelines for grassroots sport. To have a consistent set of guidelines in place that can be used across a range of grassroots sports is vitally important, and they will significantly improve the welfare of people participating.
“When we introduced our FA Concussion Guidelines to English football in 2015, we were really pleased that they were so widely accepted within the game. Not only did it raise awareness for the importance of concussion management, but it also provided valuable insight as to how to identify and treat symptoms of concussion, and how to manage the return-to-play procedure, which is crucial. We hope that these new all-sport guidelines will have a similar effect in grassroots sport across the country.
“Although the new guidelines are very similar to our own concussion protocols, we will thoroughly review the details, working alongside our Expert Concussion Panel, to ensure that our guidelines for football meet all of the requirements set out in the new all-sport version.”
