The 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act was introduced following a series of high-profile attacks on children. Apart from stipulating four prohibited breeds, it is designed to target the owner of any animal that becomes dangerously out of control in a public place. Any dog of any breed is defined as dangerous if it injures a person or behaves in a way that makes a person believe they will be harmed.

However statistically most dog bite incidents especially those involving children occur within the home by a dog that is known to those attacked making the Dangerous Dogs Act ineffective in the majority of recent serious cases.  (1) 
Targeting a breed or type is dangerous as it lulls people with dogs who are not of a banned breed type into a false sense of security when in fact no breed of dog is any more or less likely to bite than any other, it is the circumstances surrounding the incident and the background of the dog as well as the environment in which an incident occurs which is far more important in determining the cause
We in the UK have no bite register or central database in order to log information regarding bite incidents and most hospitals log all bite incidents in the same category be they from humans, dogs, hamsters, or insects, and take very little detail of circumstances surrounding the incident making it difficult to collate information which could effectively help provide advice on prevention.