Patients with hiccups and sore throats told to avoid using A&E

EMERGENCY departments are being clogged up by people with trivial ailments such as hiccups, ingrown toenails and sore throats.

- BY HANNA GEISSLER

More than 200,000 people attended A&E last year with conditions that could have been treated elsewhere.

This included 8,669 cases of itchy skin and almost 97,000 for a sore throat, NHS data shows.

Some 3,890 people visited with ingrown nails, 6,382 with nasal congestion and 384 with hiccups.