Phone: 07802 635590
Email: info@cbtrust.org.uk

Need help right now?

Hot drinks

Tea coffee scald

30 babies and toddlers go to hospital with a hot drink burn every day.

In addition to this shocking daily figure the SafeTea campaign highlights that 60% of all under 3 paediatric burn attendances to Accident & Emergency Departments are due to a hot drink burn. These figures are even more disturbing when the vast majority of these accidents are entirely preventable by simply keeping hot drinks out of reach. A burn injury is for life, the scars are physical as well as psychological, and can present life-long challenges for the individual and their families.

Prevention of hot drink burns is easy using simple SafeTea rules:

  • Keep hot drinks out of reach of young children
  • Never carry a hot drink whilst carrying a baby
  • Never pass a hot drink over the heads of young children

Ways to keep hot drinks away from children:

  • Place hot drinks at the back of the kitchen surface
  • Don’t place a hot drink on a table cloth or cloth that hangs down so that a small child can reach and pull it down
  • Make a safe place… a SafeTea zone for hot drinks… in your home where you and members of the family and visitors can keep hot drinks from young children
  • Avoid drinking hot drinks around small children
  • Always remind visitors to your home to ‘Keep hot drinks out of reach of the young children’

Tea coffee scald

Survivor stories

Our inspiring burn survivors help us to highlight the shocking number of burns and scalds which are happening to children everyday. We thank them all for their wonderful support.

Impact

30

children a day are burned by hot drinks

7335

children were burned or scalded in 2022

26%

decline in fundraising

Related content

Hot Water Burns Like Fire

Help us to stop scalding by hot water from taps and showers. Nearly 300 people a year are so badly burnt that they have to be admitted to an NHS specialist burns service with severe scalds from tap water in their bath, sink or shower, two thirds of these are children. The young and elderly are especially vulnerable as their skin is thinner, so burns quicker, and they have less ability to remove themselves from the scalding water.
read more

SafeTea

SafeTea was a national campaign aiming to reduce hot drink burns to young children, and improve first aid to children who have been burned. The SafeTea Campaign was launched across the UK in 2019.
read more

Arthur’s Story…Burned by a Hot Drink

In April 2019, aged 2 years 9 months, Arthur was playing in the garden with his sister. His mum had made a pot of coffee and put it at the back of the worktop in the kitchen. In the blink of an eye he had come back into the kitchen, climbed onto the worktop and spilled it over his neck, arm, chest and leg. 
read more

A burn injury is for life

Sign up to our newsletter