West Country Burns

Ground-breaking ways of caring for children injured by burns will be championed by a new research centre which opened in the region today. The Healing Foundation Centre has been given £1.5m to investigate treatments, and how to deal with the mental and physical scars of such injuries.

When Ava was 10 months old, her parents had some friends round at their home in Brislington in Bristol.

Mother Clodagh Richardson says, because the friends do not have children, they are not aware of how quickly children can move, and they popped a cup of tea on their coffee table.

Ava came along, went to take a drink out of it, not realising it was hot, and it tipped all down her chest and burnt her from her neck to her navel.

A new children's burns research programme has started at Frenchay Hospital near Bristol.

£1.5 million will be spent researching new treatments for burns as well as looking at the psychological effects.

It will also focus on common problems in the home; such as tea scalds and burns from hair straighteners.

Professor Alan Emond from the University of Bristol and Clodagh Richardson, mother of 11 month old Ava who was scarred when a hot cup of tea scolded her, spoke to ITV News West Country at the launch on Monday:

Our Heath Correspondent Rebecca Broxton reports on how dozens of children across our region are seriously burned by hair straighteners every year. As a result some are left scarred for life.

Now health professionals have staged a dramatic demonstration of just how much heat a hair straightener can generate.