Millions of people visit emergency departments in England for minor illnesses including coughs, nasal congestion and hiccups, according to data that health leaders say exposes a failure to give patients quick access to primary care.
Emergency rooms are for serious injuries and life-threatening emergencies only. But many are inundated with patients whose health problems should be addressed elsewhere, including a nearly tenfold increase in the number of people seeking help for coughs.
Emergency room visits for hiccups, dizziness and a variety of other minor conditions have also skyrocketed. The trend of patients presenting to emergency departments with non-emergency symptoms is highlighted by the fact that doctors found nothing wrong in more than 2 million emergency room patients in 2024-25.
It comes as Wes Streeting, the health secretary, faces pressure to show he has made progress after a year and a half in charge of the NHS. Last month, Professor Camila Hawthorne, Britain's most senior GP, told the Guardian that surgical facilities wanted to hire more physicians to meet the demand for primary care, but could not afford to do so due to a lack of core funding.
As people continue to stay urged to stay at home An analysis of NHS data by news agency PA Media into those experiencing flu or Covid symptoms over the new year found more patients were going to A&E departments for minor illnesses.
Over the past five years, doctors have seen nearly 1.9 million cases of people seeking help for headaches. Almost 1.4 million people visited A&E in England from 2020-21 to 2024-25 because of a cough, and 1.2 million because of a sore throat.
One million emergency room visits were due to ear pain, according to the analysis. There were almost 69,000 emergency room visits for a stuffy nose, 4,200 for hiccups and 290,000 cases of constipation.
The figures show that ED patient attendance in some emergency situations remained relatively stable during and after the pandemic. For example, there were 10,293 cardiac arrest visits in 2020-21, compared to 10,744 in 2024-25. The number of people diagnosed with a hip fracture in emergency departments was 43,646 in 2020–21 and 43,326 in 2024–25.
At the same time, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of calls for minor illnesses. Around 44,000 cases of 'cough' were treated in 2020-21 and the number is rising every year, reaching 435,728 in 2024-25, almost ten times more.
There were 59,120 emergency department visits with diarrhea as the main complaint in 2020-21, and the number is rising each year, reaching 143,591 by 2024-25. The number of cases of constipation increased from 40,962 to 70,933, back pain from 211,266 to 396,724, nausea from 9,795 to 20,516 and hiccups from 587 to 1,093.
In 2024-25, doctors recorded “no abnormalities detected” for 2.2 million accident and emergency department visits, while more than half a million patients left hospital before a first diagnosis was made, figures show.
Government 10 year plan as the health service promised to move care out of hospitals, creating a “neighborhood health service” in towns and cities across the country.
But Daniel Elkeles, Executive Director National Health Service Healthcare providers representing the NHS said the transition needed to happen much more quickly.
“Patients choosing to go to the emergency department for care for relatively simple conditions such as ear pain expose a failure to provide people with sufficient access to convenient and responsive services closer to home where they can get the care they need right there,” he said.
“Our New Year’s wish would be for district health to be ‘turbocharged’ to create many more primary care appointments in communities and GP practices to improve patient satisfaction with the NHS and ease the pressure on busy A&E departments.”
Dr Ian Higginson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “This is a symptom of the health system not working as it should. Just like our emergency departments.” [emergency doctors]our colleagues in primary and community care work at full capacity when their services are open, but these services are often not open when patients need them.”
National Pharmaceutical Association chief executive Henry Gregg said people were spending hours in emergency departments with problems that could be treated at a community pharmacy instead.
“Pharmacists are highly trained healthcare professionals and can now supply prescription drugs on the NHS without the need to visit a GP for a range of common conditions,” he said.
NHS England said staff are working hard to expand referral routes to health services so patients can get quick and convenient care closer to them. He encouraged people to use alternatives to urgent care to get care at the most appropriate location, including services online, by phone or in person.
The spokesman added: “As always, the public should use A&E and 999 for life-threatening conditions and serious injuries – and for non-life-threatening help call NHS 111 or use online 111, which can direct you to the most appropriate location – be it your local pharmacy, help center or clinical self-help advice.”
Department Health and Social Care said they had a “long way to go” to fix the NHS, but insisted it was “already making changes” by moving care out of hospitals and into communities.
A spokesman said: “We are putting rubber on the roads and building new district health services, increasing funding for community pharmacies and building more community diagnostic centers that offer appointments in the evenings and weekends.”
