SafeTea

Scalds from hot drinks are one of the most common causes of burn injury to children under 5 in the UK. In fact, more than 30 babies and toddlers are treated for hot drink scalds every day by the NHS.

But despite how common these accidents are, very few parents know how to apply burns first aid. 

SafeTea was a national campaign that aimed to prevent hot drink scalds to young children, and to improve first aid given to children with burns. The campaign was created and tested by the research team at The Scar Free Foundation Centre for Children’s Burns Research. 

SafeTea was launched on the 16th October 2019 on National Burns Awareness Day, in collaboration with the Children’s Burns Trust and the British Burns Association. It ran until January 2020. 

The campaign was promoted on national and local TV and radio, in newspapers, and in magazines. Ads were ran on Mumsnet and Facebook. Most people saw the campaign online through social media or the SafeTea website, but the campaign also included posters, leaflets, and charts which were distributed to schools, nurseries, and parent groups.  

We are in the process of moving all the SafeTea resources from the current SafeTea website to their new home here on scarfree.org.uk. 

You can see some of the videos made for the campaign below.

What impact did the campaign have? 

As the campaign ran, the research team measured its success. They monitored how many people used the website, how many people saw social media posts, and spoke to parents and professionals about how they used the resources. They also collected information for burns units and emergency departments before and after SafeTea started, to see whether there was a drop in the number of children with hot drink scalds.  

Overall, the campaign was a great success. Over 200,000 people saw SafeTea content on social media, and nearly 1000 people downloaded resources from the website. Both parents and professionals thought the resources were understandable, visually appealing, and clear. While the research team couldn’t say for sure whether fewer children were admitted to hospital with hot drink scalds, there were encouraging findings that showed that parents were better equipped to give first aid, if the worst happened. 

Read the evaluation