A&E Patients cost MK Hospital £1.1m

17 April 2012, 16:00

A survey carried out at Milton Keynes General Hospital shows that too many people are going to their Accident and Emergency unit for treatment when they should be going elsewhere.

More than 200 people were surveyed by the hospitals NHS Foundation Trust over a typical week.

It found that 1 in 5 people were going to A&E injuries like a sprained ankle or emergency contraception.

They should have gone somewhere like the pharmacy, NHS Direct or GP surgery.

Simon Puchtler from the NHS in Milton Keynes told Heart it’s costing them over a million pounds a year:

"We think that in the last year 1.1 million pounds could have been saved if some people had decided to go somewhere else more appropriate for their care"

"The implications of all these people going to A&E when they don't actually need to go to A&E is that is puts a lot of strain on the emergency services and all the doctors in A&E and that means that people who really need urgent treatment might get that treatment delayed"

The NHS in MK have now put together a new campaign to help people make the right decisions of where to go for treatment called 'Choose Well'.

There are scratch card questionnaires to test how much you know.

Drive-time presenter Matt Jarvis was put to the test: