Healthcare Commissioning Forum

For many years, the number of people attending A&E remained essentially unchanged at around 14 million a year.

In 2003/4, the number of attendances jumped – by nearly 18 per cent – to 16.5 million. This reflects the introduction around this time of walk-in centres and minor injuries units (referred to as type 3 units in the figures). These aimed to divert less serious cases away from major A&E units (type 1 units) and to provide easier access to urgent care. Since then, the overall number of attendances has increased significantly to 21.7 million in 2013/14, a rise of more than 30 per cent over the decade. Much of this growth has been in attendances at type 3 units – up by 3.7 million attendances (or 114 per cent) – rather than the more traditional type 1 A&E units – up 1.6 million attendances (or 12 per cent).

Figure 2: Total weekly A&E attendances 2012/13 to 2014/15



For further information: http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/urgent-emergency-care/urgent-and-emergency-care-mythbusters