Amnesty bins installed at Birmingham hospitals after knives found

Knife amnesty bins are being installed outside hospitals in Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield after weapons were found by health workers in toilets, on a footpath and even just before a patient’s MRI scan.

A bin for people to safely dispose of blades is already in operation at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham.

More will be installed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the city and Good Hope at Sutton Coldfield next week.

“People do attend the hospital carrying knives and they can sometimes be a victim of knife crime themselves,” Tom Blyth, emergency medicine consultant at Heartlands Hospital, said.

“This offers a good opportunity for reflection, and the bin offers a chance for that person to disarm themselves and remove a knife from circulation and from the streets.

“That reduces our anxiety, it reduces the risk of knife crime so we’re welcoming the incentive.”

In the last quarter of 2025, two of the knives pictured had been found hidden in toilets at Heartlands Hospital and one was next to a public footpath at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, a University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) spokesperson said.

On one occasion a patient handed over a knife to a member of staff at Heartlands as they were about to undergo an MRI scan – which poses a danger to a patient that has metal objects about their person.

Sa Narang, consultant in emergency medicine and paediatric emergency medicine, said: “It’s quite worrying that we have young people carrying knives and that are prepared to use those knives.

“One of the key interventions we do in the children’s emergency department is try and talk to those victims and perpetrators about the impact this would have on their lives moving forward.

“And if we can have one simply intervention to talk to them about it, for them to reflect on their actions, then that’s one less knife or one less victim on the streets.”

PC Luke Cooper, Heartlands Hospital liaison officer for West Midlands Police, said knives are regularly found in bushes outside the emergency department.

The bushes were recently removed, partly because of the issue.

“A number of knives were found of varying sizes that were secured by the ground staff and security here,” he said.

The knife bin now gives “the opportunity to dispose of a knife in a more responsible manner, rather than throwing them away into the bushes before they go into the hospital”, he added.

Mark Brindley, whose son James was fatally stabbed in the heart near his home in Aldridge in 2017, welcomed the move.

“It’s shocking but it’s not surprising. Knives are prevalent particularly in areas of high poverty and deprivation and we’re finding that across the country, not just in the West Midlands,” he said.

“Any knife in a bin that’s been properly designed is going to help, but it has to be part of wider measures and those wider measures have to be education, not just of young people but of parents as well and communities.”

Brindley set up the James Brindley Foundation in memory of his son and to address youth violence.

“We are in a position as a family where we have accepted what has happened, but we’ll never accept why it happened, and we won’t rest until we’ve made our contribution into turning this scourge of society around,” he said.

The bins have been funded by University Hospitals Birmingham Charity.

Jonathan Brotherton, chief executive of UHB, said: “Sadly, colleagues in our emergency departments and across our hospitals see first hand the physical and emotional damage that knife crime inflicts on local people.

“By installing these knife bins, we hope our hospitals, that are cornerstones of our communities, can play their part to reduce serious injury and fatalities.”