F1 the golden standard for safety.

Grand prix racing is setting safety standards that all other sports should aspire to, according to consultant neurosurgeon Peter Hamlyn.

Having studied various sports and their approach to safety for a series of articles in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, Hamlyn was then asked to present a report on the subject on behalf of a parliamentary working group keen to see a central advisory body on safe practice set up in the UK.

According to the report, Hamlyn praised the strides made by Formula One - a sport, he points out, whose future was once threatened by its poor safety record. Highlighting recent incidents which, in the past, would have left drivers dead or seriously injured, Hamlyn acknowledged the work carried out by the sport's overseers Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone and guided by safety guru Professor Sid Watkins.

"The efforts of Max Mosley and F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, combined with the thinking of Sid Watkins, have delivered a system that now means people race at greater speed, have more accidents - and yet sustain far fewer injuries," he wrote in his Telegraph column.

"The car design, the barriers and the medical teams mean drivers nearly always walk away after an accident. When Luciano Burti smashed his car at 170mph at the Belgian Grand Prix this year, he escaped with bruising. He owes his life to the safety improvements which followed Watkins' investigation of the Ayrton Senna tragedy."

Hamlyn went on to mention Mika Hakkinen's Adelaide accident in 1995, claiming that the safety levels in F1 even then prevented the sport from facing a medical tragedy such as that suffered by the boxer Michael Watson, who was left brain damaged and paralysed after a bout with inadequate medical cover.

Particularly high on the agenda of the report was the fact that 'standards vary' in all areas of medicine - often with serious consequences. What the working party - chaired by former health minister Tessa Jowell - is hoping to achieve is the creation of a UK advisory and accreditation service to ensure common practices for safety in all sports, not just Formula One. To be run by UK Sport, it is hoped that the system would then be adopted in other countries, eventually leading to a globally-recognised service.