Ministers want doctors to tell police if they treat patients with wounds from knife attack

· Victim's name and address would not be disclosed
· England footballers endorse campaign

Doctors will be told to inform the police whenever somebody arrives in hospital with a wound inflicted in a knife attack, under draft guidance drawn up by the General Medical Council and the Department of Health.

But accident and emergency doctors will not have to breach confidentiality by disclosing identifying details such as the patient's name and address when they first make contact.

The guidance, which will go out to consultation next month, is designed to end the dispute between the government and doctors over the medical reporting of knife wounds. Doctors have been anxious to avoid a situation where knife crime victims are deterred from going to hospital because they fear they will have to name names.

Police will not have to be informed if the injury to the patient is accidental or self-inflicted.

The guidance was disclosed as the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced that an extra 85 search arches and 566 search wands are to be made available to the police in the 10 knife crime "hotspots" involved in the action programme to tackle knives.

Smith said 55,000 people had been stopped and searched for knives in the 10 areas since the campaign was launched on June 5, with 2,500 arrests made for knife-related offences and 1,600 knives or other blades confiscated.

The figures were released as three England football stars, David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand and David James, joined Smith at a press conference in Watford to endorse the government's campaign, "It doesn't have to happen", urging young people not to carry knives.

Smith said the deaths of Conor James Black in Manchester and Nilanthan Murddi in Croydon, south London, at the weekend showed why the campaign was so important. "If you carry a knife you are now more likely to get caught, more likely to be prosecuted and more likely to go to prison if found guilty," she said.

Beckham said the stabbing of the brother of one of his best friends when he was a young teenager lay behind his support for the campaign. His friend, who was about to sign a contract with Leyton Orient when he intervened in a street fight, was stabbed in the back and left paralysed.

"No one wants to see the devastation I saw my friend and the family go through," said Beckham. "You don't expect situations that are happening whereby people go to school in the morning and then you never see them again because of incidents that have happened. We have got to help. We have got a voice that kids listen to so it is important we get involved in something like this."

Ferdinand said the death of Stephen Lawrence, who was several years older than him, had shaken everyone at his south-east London school. "I will never forget the day that the headmaster brought the school to a halt and said that Stephen had been killed the night before. It was a crazy atmosphere in school, very sombre and chilling. Something like that really does hit home. One day he is enjoying life, talking about doing an art A-level, and the next day he is gone."

Ferdinand, who said he did not carry a knife when he was teenager but was "around people that probably did for whatever reason", said children were wrong if they thought they needed to carry a knife for safety or to be a "big, bad tough guy".

He added: "In the past maybe there wasn't a strong enough deterrent for carrying knives. If you go to prison now, it will be a step in the right direction. People need to know it is not always the person intending to hurt someone who gets injured. People carrying the knives also get hurt.

"Communities and youth centres also need to play a bigger part. Boredom can set in a lot of times, there is a lot of peer pressure, and then something happens that everyone regrets."

Smith said: "I'm delighted the FA and the England team are supporting our campaign warning youngsters about the severe consequences of knife crime.

"You can only solve this by working together. The England players are role models for this generation and I hope their messages have a positive impact."