GPs and emergency department doctors need more training to manage head injuries in amateur sportspeople, MPs say

Doctors in general practice and emergency departments need more training in managing patients with head trauma, an inquiry by MPs into concussion in sport has concluded.1

The report, from the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, concluded that the government needs to do more to protect people participating in sport at all levels from the long term health consequences of head injuries, including increasing awareness of the NHS frontline.

Richard Sylvester, a consultant neurologist at the Institute of Sport, Exercise, and Health, told the committee he was more concerned about the management of head injuries in grassroots sports than those at professional level who would have good access to medical specialists. “I see adolescents who cannot do their …