Fifty‐one patients who had suffered blunt abdominal trauma were assessed clinically and with diagnostic peritoneal lavage. The latter has been shown to be a safe, accurate means of determining the presence or absence of haemoperitoneum. Furthermore, in patients with disturbed conscious states, the initial clinical assessment has been found to be inaccurate and the performance of diagnostic peritoneal lavage has resulted in a statistically significant increase in diagnostic accuracy (P = 0.006). However, in patients with a normal conscious state, the improvement in diagnostic accuracy achieved by the performance of diagnostic peritoneal lavage was not statistically significant. The technique of diagnostic peritoneal lavage is discussed in detai