Overview
- The national Drowning Prevention Week, led by the Royal Life Saving Society UK, runs Saturday, June 13 to June 20 and will be supported by local fire services and councils.
- RLSS has widened this year’s focus to 13–17-year-olds after reporting a 67% rise in deaths among that age group and citing 3,615 drownings across the UK and Ireland over the past five years.
- Local authorities including Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue and East Riding of Yorkshire Council are promoting RLSS lesson plans, urging people to swim only between lifeguard flags and running targeted sessions in Withernsea and Beverley.
- RLSS is pressing for longer-term measures such as more lifeguards and trained lifesavers, bystander rescue training and a unified government water-safety policy while England will introduce water-safety education into schools from September.
- Organisers say the campaign aims to cut summer open-water deaths and could prompt councils and central government to fund lifeguards and school programmes that change how communities prepare for safe swimming.