Knives have devastating effects, hospitals and hospital staff see more than their fair share day in, day out. Below some of the staff tell us of their experiences:

I have spent many years training as a surgeon in East London and have seen the results of knife injuries on most of the nights that I have worked over the last 10 years. During that time I have been working over Christmas on several occasions.

I remember one Christmas Eve receiving a 17-year-old male who had been stabbed in the chest on the left side. The knife had gone deep in to the chest breaking 2 ribs in the process. He had a cardiac arrest on arrival.

I opened his chest and attempted to stop the bleeding but there was no neat hole in the heart to sew up. Instead there was just a constant welling up of blood from behind the heart that flew out of the chest every time we ventilated his lungs. It was impossible to stop this and he died.

Covered in blood, I looked up to see that it was now Christmas day. The floor in the resuscitation room was about 1cm deep in blood and the place smelt of it. There was silence around the room. Later that night I found one of the nurses crying outside.

The worst thing about this case is that the next Christmas Eve the same thing happened again.

Charles Knowles, a Consultant Surgeon at the Homerton Hospital in Hackney and the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

Mr Nigel Tai, a consultant in Trauma and Vascular Surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel- has had ample opportunity to observe the tragic consequences of knife violence, both in the UK and abroad.

I will always remember breaking the news of one 17 year-old victim's death to his mother and sister.

The blade had gone in to his buttock and then in to an intestinal blood vessel, causing serious internal haemorrhage which resulted in his collapse several hours later.

Neither the victim, the perpetrator nor the medical staff realised the extent of the damage as the external wound was small and there was little bleeding.

The anguish inflicted on this boy's relatives, and their total distress on hearing the news of their loved one's senseless death, is typical of the devastating impact that results from carrying a knife.

Police can and will search you if they think you are carrying a knife. They can also come into your school and search you there. It's no good saying that you took the knife out with you for your own protection. Carrying a knife is illegal, and you will be arrested.

Carrying a knife means you could end up in court with a criminal record that will affect the rest of your life. It may prevent you from getting a job, going to university or college or even travelling abroad to some countries.

The maximum prison sentence for possession of a knife is 4 years. But if it's been used to commit a crime or to injure someone, the penalties are a lot worse.

• Offensive Weapons legislation