Millions go to hospital for minor ailments

A&E SEEING PEOPLE WITH JUST COUGHS, COLDS & HEADACHES

- By ELLA PICKOVER and IAN JONES

MILLIONS of patients are seeking help in A&Es for minor conditions, figures show.

Analysis revealed that in five years A&E medics dealt with almost 1.9 million cases of people seeking help for a headache.

Almost 1.4 million A&E attendances in England from 2020/21 to 2024/25 were due to a cough and 1.2 million were for a sore throat.

One million A&E attendances were due to earache, according to analysis by the Press Association.

There were almost 69,000 A&E attendances for a blocked nose, 4,200 for hiccups and 290,000 where the chief complaint was constipation.

The 2020/21 year covers the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, when many patients steered clear of hospitals.