Huge rise in number of people in England’s A&Es for coughs or hiccups | A&E
Millions of people are turning to A&E departments in England for minor ailments such as coughs, nasal congestion and hiccups, according to data that health leaders say reveals a failure to provide patients with rapid access to primary care.
Emergency rooms are designed only for serious injuries and life-threatening emergencies. But many are inundated with patients whose health issues need to be addressed elsewhere; This includes an almost tenfold increase in people seeking help for cough.
Visits to A&E for hiccups, dizziness and countless other minor ailments have also increased. The trend of patients going to emergency departments with non-urgent symptoms is highlighted by the fact doctors found no problems in more than 2 million A&E patients in 2024-25.
Health secretary Wes Streeting faces pressure to show he is making progress after a year and a half in charge of the NHS. Last month England’s most senior general practitioner, Prof Kamila Hawthorne, told the Guardian that surgeries wanted to recruit more doctors to meet demand for primary care but were unable to do so due to a lack of basic funding.
While people continue to be encouraged to stay at home if they have flu or Covid symptoms over the New Year period, analysis of NHS data by news agency PA Media has revealed more patients are turning to emergency rooms for minor ailments.
In the last five years, doctors have seen almost 1.9 million people seeking help for headaches. Almost 1.4 million A&E attendances in England from 2020-21 to 2024-25 were for cough and 1.2 million were for sore throat.
One million A&E attendances were due to earache, analysis suggests. There were almost 69,000 A&E visits due to nasal congestion, 4,200 due to hiccups and 290,000 due to constipation.
The figures show how A&E attendances for some medical emergencies have remained relatively consistent during and since the pandemic. For example, 10,293 attendances due to heart attacks were recorded in 2020-21, compared to 10,744 in 2024-25. The number of people diagnosed with a hip fracture at A&E was 43,646 in 2020-21 and 43,326 in 2024-25.
At the same time, there was a noticeable increase in participation for minor ailments. Nearly 44,000 cases of “cough” were dealt with in 2020-21, with the number rising each year, reaching 435,728 in 2024-25, an almost tenfold increase.
There were 59,120 A&E attendances in 2020-21 where diarrhea was the main complaint, with this number increasing each year, reaching 143,591 in 2024-25. The number of constipation cases increased from 40,962 to 70,933, back pain from 211,266 to 396,724, nausea cases from 9,795 to 20,516, and hiccup cases from 587 to 1,093.
Doctors recorded “no abnormalities detected” in 2.2 million A&E visits in 2024-25, while more than half a million patients abandoned treatment before an initial diagnosis was made, figures show.
The government’s 10-year plan for healthcare promises to create a “neighborhood health service” in towns and cities across the country, shifting care away from hospitals.
But Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said change needed to happen much faster.
“Patients choosing to go to A&E for help with relatively simple conditions such as earaches reveals a failure to provide people with adequate access to appropriate and responsive services closer to home, where they can get the immediate help they need,” he said.
“Our new year wish would be to see neighborhood health services ‘turbocharged’ to create more primary care appointments in communities and GP surgeries to improve patient satisfaction with the NHS and ease pressure on busy A&Es.”
Dr Ian Higginson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “This is a symptom of the healthcare system not working as designed. Just like our emergency departments.” [emergency doctors]Our colleagues in primary care and community services have capacity when their services are open, but those services are often not open when patients need them.”
Henry Gregg, chief executive of the National Association of Pharmacists, said people were spending hours in A&E dealing with problems that could be treated in pharmacies.
“Pharmacists are highly trained healthcare professionals and can now supply prescription medicines via the NHS for a range of common diseases without the need for a doctor’s appointment,” he said.
NHS England said staff were working hard to increase the number of pathways to care so patients can be closer to quick and easy care. He urged people to use alternatives to A&E to get help where most convenient, including services available online, over the phone or in person.
A spokesman added: “As always, the public should use A&E and 999 for life-threatening situations and serious injuries, and call NHS 111 for non-life-threatening care or use online 111, which can direct you to the most appropriate location – whether that’s your local pharmacy, walk-in treatment center or clinic self-help advice.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said there was a “long road ahead” of fixing the NHS but insisted it was “already delivering change” by shifting care from hospitals to communities.
A spokesman said: “We are hitting the road and building new neighborhood health services, increasing funding for community pharmacy services and building more community diagnostic centers offering evening and weekend appointments.”
