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Most people feel safest in their homes - but the reality is actually far different with the latest statistics showing home is the most common place for New Zealanders to be injured.

The figures show that one in seven New Zealanders were injured in their homes in the year from July 07 to June 08 - a third of all injuries.  That's more than 650,000 New Zealanders injured at home in a year -  which equates to an injury every 44 seconds.

Worse still, more than 36,000 of those injuries required hospitalisation and 500 of those injuries resulted in death.  A child dies every two weeks from an injury in the home in New Zealand. 

This is tragic, compounded by the fact that the causes of most of the injuries are often very easy to avoid.

In the Waikato alone there were 5254 injuries in the home last year and 30 fatalities.

The total cost of the region's home injuries was more than $44million last year.  Across the country, the total cost of home injuries was a huge $377 million.

We can -  and must - do more to prevent injury in the home and this is why it's the focus of New Zealand Safety Week this week.

Safety Week is part of an ongoing ACC campaign to educate New Zealanders about the risks in the home and to encourage us all to think about taking some, often quite basic, safety steps to prevent accidents.

Changing our mindsets is an important part of taking a more precautionary approach, as research shows most New Zealanders seem to think there is little chance they personally are likely to get injured at home - in fact just 15 per cent think they will get hurt.

The steps you could take to stay safe might appear very simple, but they could save a life.  How often do you run for the phone and risk tripping over, for example, when you could simply increase the number of rings on your phone instead?

The kitchen is a particularly dangerous place and more injuries occurred in Waikato kitchens than in any other household room - a statistic common to most regions around the country.

So here's a list of  what can you do to make the kitchen safer: install safety catches on cupboards where you keep dangerous objects like poisons or knives, keep cupboard doors closed so you don't walk into them (more likely when they are hanging open), keep heavy objects in low cupboards so they don't fall on you, use a step ladder to reach high shelves rather than a chair and mop up water and spills as soon as you see them.

And remember slips, trips and falls are the cause of over half of all moderate to serious home injuries, 40% of New Zealand homes have dangerously hot water and tools are dangerous if not used properly.

So get on board, embrace Safety Week and make your home safer!  The statistics have certainly made me think and I'm planning a few changes myself.

(For further information on Safety NZ Week and keeping safe in the home, visit www.homesafety.co.nz.)

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