Key Summary
- Many people are going to emergency departments for minor illnesses, adding to dangerous winter pressures
- NHS leaders urge people to use community pharmacies, NHS 111 and online services for quicker, appropriate care
- With A&E services overwhelmed by an unprecedented flu wave, the NHS has urged the people to utilise other health services for minor ailments
This follows a recent report that 42 per cent of people visited A&E for minor health issues, such as a sore throat, last year.
Ade Williams, a community pharmacist from Bristol, urged people to look for the right place for care.
He told BBC, "We look for help, because we want it to be quickly and easily accessible, but if you turn up to the wrong place, it delays you getting that help.”
He suggested that community pharmacies offer a gateway to receiving NHS care and to facilitating self-care.
Williams said the right use of health services avoids care delays and ensures maximum health outcomes, especially during critical times of patient number rise.
The NHS is launching a "winter reset" campaign to show how services like 111, pharmacies, the NHS App and online GP forms can offer more convenient care for minor ailments.
The A&E services have deteriorated over the years, and a study by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) found that one in five A&E patients were treated in hallways, and some of them have to wait for days to get a bed.
The research claims that the “shameful practice of corridor care is endemic” and has become “routine.”
RCEM president Dr Ian Higginson had said it is “worrying” that the snapshots were taken in March, and not during the peak winter.
He fears that this winter “we will see gridlock."
