In the last several years Nev has noticed a huge increase in the number of sports injuries around the knee in children and has found more and more young children and teenagers requiring surgical intervention.
The most striking increase is in the numbers of injuries related to a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
This is a devastating injury for the young athlete, in both the short term, with a year off sports and a lengthy rehabilitation, but also in the long term for the increased risk of knee arthritis in their young adult lives.
ACL injuries have a huge burden on the NHS and probably come second only to concussion in the most serious and pressing of sports related injuries in today’s current climate.
If injury prevention programs were in place, for the young UK population, this could potentially prevent 50% of these injuries happening in the first place, with massive savings to the individual, the family, their teams and the wider health service and society.
There is plenty of good data from lots of studies around the world particularly Scandinavia, Australia and the US showing that youth injury prevention programs, when carried out correctly are successful in reducing numbers of significant injuries in children’s sports.
Unfortunately, in the UK we are someway behind in even recognising these programs, let alone introducing them into our sports clubs and schools.
Different sports bodies do have their own programs, for example, FIFA 11+ for football and Activate for Rugby. However due to many different reasons these programs are only being followed by a small minority of children.
Nev has an interest and passion to reduce sporting injuries and promote injury prevention programs. He has been involved in several initiatives in the last few years and is often invited to talk at various conferences about injury prevention:
He is known as trustee for the UK sports injury prevention charity Power Up to Play who are working tirelessly towards improving the UK knowledge and understanding of these important injury prevention practices.
Nev has spoken at –
Warwick Sports Knee Conference at St. Georges Park in Burton-on-Trent 2018 and Edbastom Cricket Ground 2024
British Orthopaedic Association Congress – Aberdeen 2021, Liverpool 2023
The Kids Knee Conference, Sheffield 2022, 2024
Nev applied for and was awarded a BSCOS Consultant Bursary which will enabled him to travel to visit Dr. Engebretsen and his team at Skadefri in Oslo. Skadefri is the Norwegian national injury prevention program which is spearheading the world’s fight against preventable sports injuries.
Nev has made it his mission to bring together all interested parties in the UK and meet with other world experts to develop a solution which will begin to decrease this injury burden to our UK children.
In June 2023 – he was on Sky Sports with fellow trustees talking about the charity and the rise in ACL injuries
Explained: Why teenage ACL injuries are on the rise
He has been invited to speak on several podcasts
BSCOS research podcast about the charity – listen here
https://bscos.org.uk/meetings/education/PODcast.php
Royal Society of Medicine – T&O Podcast
The BBC Sports Desk Podcast with Katie Smith
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gh9q0d
Further work continues with relationships building with Oxfordshire and Berkshire FA, the Manchester United Foundation and more recently Football Association Wales 🏴
Watch this space as we continue to develop this important project in the UK
Nev Davies
August 2024
