Millions going to A&E for minor ailments

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

- ELLA PICKOVER & IAN JONES

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 figures show how A&E attendances for some medical emergencies - such as the heart stopping - have stayed relatively consistent during and since the pandemic e.g. 10,293 attendances due to cardiac arrest were logged in 2020/21, compared with 10,744 in 2024/25.