NHS viral campaign to reduce inappropriate attendance at A&E
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A series of NHS videos are highlighting some of the most inappropriate reasons for patients attending A&E departments.
Actors from stage and screen gave up their time free of charge to appear alongside NHS staff as characters including women waiting for treatment for hair-dye disasters and botched false nails, a pushy mum desperate for her son to be seen by senior doctors for his diarrhoea, and even a man hoping A&E staff will turn their hands to helping out his poorly dog!
Focussing on patients in the waiting rooms, the viewer can’t tell until the end of the films whether they’re in a vet’s surgery, X Factor audition, beauty salon – or a hospital. At the end of each, viewers are reminded that they should go to their local pharmacy for advice on treatment of very minor illnesses and injuries.
The more serious message is that cases such as these put added pressure on already busy A&E and 999 teams. In the last 12 months it is estimated that more than 700,000 people went to A&E departments in the South of England, when they could have been treated and advised by their local pharmacist or GP, or could have looked after themselves at home.
The videos, available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/NWNHS are being distributed through social media as part of the NHS’s Choose Well campaign and NHS South of England is appealing for as many people as possible to post them to their Facebook and Twitter profiles, to try and get the message across that A&E and 999 are for serious and life-threatening conditions.
Dr Mike Durkin, Medical Director at NHS South of
“It is estimated that every single attendance at A&E costs a minimum of £59, and as many as one in four people who attend A&E could have been treated by their pharmacist or GP, or did not need any form of medical intervention.
“That puts an enormous and unnecessary strain on the NHS, and not just in financial terms. Every minute that an A&E doctor spends treating very minor problems reduces the time they can spend attending to those who have suffered heart attacks, strokes and life-threatening injuries.”
