The UK's safeguarding minister has called for an overhaul of the main tool used to decide if a domestic abuse victim needs urgent support.

Jess Phillips told the BBC's File on 4 that the current Dash assessment "doesn't work", amid mounting evidence that it fails to correctly identify those at the highest risk of further harm.

Violence against women and girls accounts for 20% of all recorded crime in England and Wales, according to the National Police Chiefs' Council. A woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK; in the year to March 2024, there were 108 domestic homicides in England and Wales, according to the Office for National Statistics.

How does Dash work?

The Dash (Domestic, Abuse, Stalking, Harassment and Honour-Based Violence) assessment is a checklist, co-developed

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