08.01.14
Non-emergency visits adding pressure to A&E
Some patients are visiting A&E over 50 times a year, new figures suggest.
A BBC investigation found that almost 12,000 people made over ten visits to individual A&E units in 2012/13. In total, people who frequently attend A&E accounted for around 200,000 visits last year.
The figures come from Freedom of Information requests to 175 trusts and boards on repeat attendances.
Dr Cliff Mann, of the College of Emergency Medicine said: “At a time when emergency departments are very busy, it is clear that repeat non-emergency attendees are adding to the pressures.”
He told Radio 4’s Today programme: “The figures show that some individuals actually attended nearly 250 times a year, which is almost five times a week, whereas other people are using it 10 times a year, which is more like once a month.
“There’s clearly a difference between those groups, but most of them represent groups which are to some extent on the margins of society – a lot of problems associated with drugs and alcohol, some with homelessness, a lot with mental health problems, isolation and loneliness for some individuals.
“Unfortunately, we are not able to guarantee them access to those other services. We don’t have direct links, by and large, into mental health services, drug and alcohol services or even primary care out of hours.
“I think that the lack of integration around the margins of health care is a real problem and causes people to fall between two stools far too often. The problem is that many of these services are run as individual services without a real focus on those problems of integration.”
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Image c. Rui Vieira/ PA Wire/ Press Association Images