UK city with the most broken bones revealed – is your home on the list?

MANY OF us might have a painful childhood memory of breaking a bone.

We might have been playing too hard or fallen off a bike.

Of course, broken bones – or fractures, as they’re referred to by doctors – can affect people of all ages. An accident or fall can be the culprit, or there can be a more sinister cause.

It might not have occurred to you that some cities in the UK have higher incidences of fractures than others.

Personal injury experts at claims.co.uk analysed the latest NHS data to reveal which the total number of bone fractures in each UK city – and their results might surprise you.

In tallying cities from most to least ‘accident-prone’, the experts looked at A&E visits in each city and calculated what percentage of these were for fractures.

This included broken hands, arms and legs, but since open fractures are considered an emergency, they weren’t included in the analysis.

A complicated break is where the bone has broken through the skin, or the injury has exposed the broken bone.

According to the NHS, they’re typically caused by ‘high-energy injuries’ such as road traffic collisions, falls or sports injuries.

Which UK city has the most broken bones?

Chippenham, Wiltshire topped their list as the most accident-prone city in the UK.

The experts’ analysis found that between 2021 and 2022, Chippenham had 22,720 A&E with 2,880 for broken bones.

This means that a whopping 12.7 per cent of A&E visits in this area were for fractures alone. 

Coming in second was Truro, Cornwall which saw 185,940 A&E visits between 2021 and 2022.

Out of these visits, 9.6 per cent were for a broken bone specifically. 

In third was Norwich. This Norfolk city saw 140,465 A&E visits within one year, with 12,585 fractures.  

Harwich, Essex came in as the fourth clumsiest town in the UK – 8.3 per cent of all A&E visits were for a fracture.

The fifth most accident-prone UK cities were Torquay and Salisbury.

The beachfront location of Torquay in the South of Devon has many water-based activities including surfing and boating which can potentially cause accidents, claims.co.uk explained.

Out of 100,495 A&E visits between 2021 and 2022, 8,385 were for bone fractures.

The same percentage of people – 8.3 – who visited the A&E in Salisbury in Wiltshire also did so for broken bone. 

Coming in sixth was Shepton Mallet, Somerset, where 755 of the 9,320 A&E trips in that year were to attend to fractures.

Meanwhile Worcester, West Midlands ranked seventh with 16,940 A&E trips due to a fracture.  

Newark, Nottinghamshire was in eighth position alongside Harrogate, North Yorkshire. In both of these areas, 7.9 per cent of the annual visits to A&E were for a person’s fracture. 

Poole comes was the ninth clumsiest UK city: out of 175,764 visits to A&E, the total number of fractures was 13,595. 

Ashford and Dudley both place tenth with 7.6 per cent of their annual A&E trips being due to a fracture.  

Portsmouth came in as the least accident-prone town in the UK. Out of 58,680 trips to A&E, only 0.6 per cent were for a fracture.

In comparison, the national average stands at 5.3 per cent, the personal injury experts said.  

Sasha Quail, Business Development Manager for claims.co.uk commented on the findings: “A broken bone can be disruptive to a person’s everyday life; for those in work, a fracture can result in a loss of income, or a difficulty in caring for loved ones. It is also extremely painful and time consuming. 

“This research reveals the large disparities in accident prone towns and cities across the UK; Chippenham’s fracture rate is more than 20 times higher than Portsmouth’s. 

She went on: “If this accident was caused by a third-party, the most common claim in personal injury is negligence. Claiming compensation can help people who have suffered an injury to receive the money they are owed for their discomfort and disruption.”