HOSPITAL emergency departments are being swamped by people turning up with minor ailments because primary care and local health centres cannot keep up with demand, new figures have revealed.

Spanning the last year, the figures from Data for England, part of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that more than 8.5 million people went to hard-pressed hospital A&E departments with minor complaints such as hiccups, sore throats, back ache and insomnia last year.

They show A&E departments dealing with 257,915 cases of earache (up 10 per cent); 324,443 cases of backache (up 13 per cent); 423,297 cases of headache (up 12 per cent); 369,264 people with coughs (up 15 per cent) and 963 cases of hiccups (up 18 per cent).

Royal College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Adrian Boyle said: “This is symptomatic of issues that permeate the entire healthcare system.

“Just like our emergency departments, which are routinely overcrowded, primary and community-based services are massively overstretched.

“It is therefore no surprise that people turn to A&E for treatment of more minor issues.

“However, this in turn places additional demand on emergency care teams who are already dealing with the extra pressures that come with winter, combined with an under-resourced social care system that means discharges are delayed.

“This is a vicious cycle which means there is less capacity to treat the people who are most in need of urgent care.”

He called on the government to “deliver on its promise to fix the healthcare system.”

Dr John Puntis, co-chair of national campaign Keep Our NHS Public (KONP), said: “The increase in numbers of patients attending emergency departments paints a vivid picture of the crisis that grips the whole of the NHS.

“Lack of community services and overburdening of GPs means worried patients seek out the one service that is open 24/7.

“Only significant investment in staff and facilities will turn this around.

“Labour now owns the problem, and its fall-back position of blaming the Conservatives will soon become untenable.

“The substantial improvements in NHS performance wrought by New Labour were almost entirely attributable to a massive increase in funding for staff and facilities, rather than failed experimental partnerships with the private sector.

“There is an urgent need for the lessons of the past to be learned so that they can be usefully applied to the current situation.

“[Health Secretary] Wes Streeting and front-bench colleagues must seriously reflect on what kind of legacy they wish to be remembered for.”

NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said: “Ninety-six per cent of trust leaders say they’re worried about the effect of winter pressures on an already stretched NHS.

“We’ve just seen a record number of A&E attendances in the past year.

“Pressure on urgent and emergency care services including A&E departments is only likely to intensify in winter, regularly the toughest and busiest time of year for the NHS.

“But trusts continue to work flat out to see patients as quickly as possible.”

Mr Streeting has recently ordered health service leaders to “prioritise patient safety” as winter approaches.