NEW medical kits to help save someone's life if they have been stabbed have been placed around Halesowen in response to a rise in knife crime.

Halesowen BID has put 'bleed kits' at The William Shenstone pub on the Queensway, in the Cornbow Shopping Centre, at Halesowen College, Macdonalds on Bromsgrove Road and at the Phase Trust on Little Cornbow.

The kits, which cost £80 each, contain a highly absorbent and padded dressing with an elasticated pressure bandage attached to it, to stem the bleeding.

After the dressing is applied - serious amounts of sustained pressure should be applied to the wound.

BID manager Vicky Rogers said: "The first three minutes are vital to the recovery of a stab wound.

"Halesowen BID are aware of the rise in knife-related incidents and believe that having such provisions in place across the area may help to save the life of a victim of knife crime."

The kits also contain wound-packing and coagulation dressings for deep penetrating wounds, so the source of the bleed can be found and the wound packed to a point where pressure can be applied.

The kit in the Cornbow Shopping Centre is in the management suite next to Poundland on the first floor.

A man was stabbed in the hand and another was attacked during a terrifying carjacking in Stourbridge Road, Halesowen, on October 1 and back in June a 16-year-old girl was slashed with a knife across her face outside Halesowen College in Whittingham Road.