One in four emergency patients treated in hospital last year did not need to be there, a report reveals today.
Around 1.5million patients taken to A&E could have been treated in the community by GPs, nurses or at walk-in centres, if there was better provision.
Emergency admissions – where patients receive hospital care after being admitted at A&E departments – rose to 5.8million in 2016/17, costing the NHS £13.7billion.
This could mean patients being treated in hospital for anything from flu to care during the final days of cancer.
Emergency admissions – where patients receive hospital care after being admitted at A&E departments – rose to 5.8million in 2016/17, costing the NHS £13.7billion
This was an increase of 24 per cent in a decade (2006/7), according to the National Audit Office (NAO) report.
It said that 79 per cent of patients admitted were sent home later the same day.
The continued rise comes despite the introduction of schemes designed to ensure patients with long-term conditions are treated at home.
The Better Care Fund was launched in 2015 to try to save the NHS money by reducing the numbers who were admitted to A&E and ensure that if they did end up in hospital, they were discharged very quickly.
But the report found that over-65s being treated as A&E admissions has risen by 12 per cent in the past four years.
Around 1.5million patients taken to A&E could have been treated in the community by GPs, nurses or at walk-in centres, if there was better provision
Emergency admissions can have a significant impact on patients, particularly older people who can lose mobility quickly and are far more likely to get hospital infections such as norovirus.
If a hospital is overstretched with emergency care, it can also reduce capacity for planned operations.
Pressure to meet A&E waiting times targets is also a factor with previous data showing a quarter of admissions occur in the last ten minutes of the four-hour period.
The report found that while progress has been made to manage their impact on hospitals, the ‘challenge of managing emergency admissions is far from being under control’.
Sir Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: ‘It is a problem for all of us that A&Es remain overloaded and a constant point of stress for patients and the NHS.’
Pressure to meet A&E waiting times targets is also a factor with previous data showing a quarter of admissions occur in the last ten minutes of the four-hour period
Donna Kinnair, of the Royal College of Nursing, said the figures were further evidence of the need for community nursing, which has seen a 15 per cent drop since 2010.
‘Rising emergency admissions highlight just how overstretched our community services are, across both health and social care,’ she said.
‘People – particularly older people – are not getting the support they need in the community, which leads to more emergency admissions and dangerous levels of bed occupancy, as we have seen this winter.’
Professor Keith Willett, NHS England’s medical director for acute care, said the report recognised improvements over the past four years.
‘There are 12 per cent fewer A&E patients being admitted than was predicted at the start of the decade,’ he said.