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Millions of people are turning to A&E departments in England for minor ailments including coughs, blocked noses and hiccups, according to data that health leaders say lays bare a failure to give patients prompt access to primary care.
Emergency wards are designed for serious injuries and life-threatening emergencies only. But many are becoming swamped with patients whose health concerns should be dealt with elsewhere, including a near tenfold increase in people seeking help for a cough.
A&E attendances for hiccups, dizziness and a myriad of other minor conditions have also soared. The trend of patients heading to emergency departments with non-emergency symptoms is underlined by the fact that doctors found nothing wrong with more than 2 million A&E patients in 2024-25.
It comes as Wes Streeting, the health secretary, faces pressure to show he is making progress after a year and a half in charge of the NHS. Last month Prof Kamila Hawthorne, Britain’s most senior GP, told the Guardian that surgeries wanted to hire more doctors to meet demand for primary care but could not afford to do so because of a lack of core funding.
As people continue to be urged to stay at home over the new year period if they have symptoms of flu or Covid, analysis of NHS data by the PA Media news agency found more patients were turning to A&E for minor conditions.
In the last five years, doctors saw almost 1.9m cases of people seeking help for a headache. Almost 1.4m A&E attendances in England from 2020-21 to 2024-25 were for a cough and 1.2m were for a sore throat.
One million A&E attendances were due to earache, according to the analysis. There were almost 69,000 A&E attendances for a blocked nose, 4,200 for hiccups and 290,000 cases of constipation.
The figures show how A&E attendances for some medical emergencies have stayed relatively consistent during and since the pandemic. For instance, 10,293 attendances owing to cardiac arrest were recorded in 2020-21, compared with 10,744 in 2024-25. The number of people diagnosed in A&E with a broken hip was 43,646 in 2020-21 and 43,326 in 2024-25.
At the same time, there has been a notable increase in attendances for minor ailments. About 44,000 cases of “cough” were dealt with in 2020-21 and the number has risen every year to reach 435,728 in 2024-25 – a near tenfold increase.
There were 59,120 A&E attendances where the chief complaint was diarrhoea in 2020-21, rising each year to reach 143,591 by 2024-25. Cases of constipation grew from 40,962 to 70,933, backache from 211,266 to 396,724, nausea from 9,795 to 20,516, and hiccups from 587 to 1,093.
Doctors recorded “no abnormality was detected” for 2.2m A&E attendances in 2024-25, while more than half a million patients walked out before a first diagnosis was made, the figures show.
The government’s 10-year plan for the health service has vowed to shift care away from hospitals, creating a “neighbourhood health service” in towns and cities across the country.
But Daniel Elkeles, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said the shift needed to happen much more quickly.
“Patients choosing to attend A&E for help with relatively simple conditions like earache lays bare a failure to give people enough access to convenient, responsive services closer to home where they can get the help they need there and then,” he said.
“Our new year’s wish would be to see neighbourhood healthcare ‘turbocharged’ to create many more primary care appointments, in communities and GP practices, to boost patients’ satisfaction with the NHS and ease pressure on busy A&Es.”
Dr Ian Higginson, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “This is a symptom of the healthcare system not working as it was designed to. Just like our EDs [emergency doctors], our colleagues in primary and community services are at capacity when their services are open, but those services often aren’t open when patients need them.”
The National Pharmacy Association chief executive, Henry Gregg, said people were spending hours in A&E with issues that could instead be treated in a community pharmacy.
“Pharmacists are highly trained healthcare professionals and can now supply prescription medicines on the NHS without the need for a GP appointment, for a range of common illnesses,” he said.
NHS England said staff were working hard to expand the number of routes into the health service so patients could get fast and convenient care closer to them. It urged people to use alternatives to A&E to get help in the most appropriate place, including services online, via phone or in person.
A spokesperson added: “As always, the public should use A&E and 999 for life-threatening conditions and serious injuries – and for non-life-threatening care, call NHS 111 or use 111 online, which can direct you to the most appropriate place – whether that be your local pharmacy, a walk-in centre or clinical self-help advice.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said there was a “long road ahead” to fix the NHS, but insisted it was “already delivering change” by shifting care out of hospitals and into communities.
A spokesperson said: “We’re getting rubber to the road and building new neighbourhood health services, increasing funding for community pharmacy services and building more community diagnostic centres which offer evening and weekend appointments.”
