Staff at Epsom, Sutton and St Helier Hospitals are supporting a national campaign to help people find the right NHS service they need as quickly as possible.
Voicing his support for the NHS' Choose Well campaign, Dr Martin Stockwell, joint medical director, said: "More than 143,300 patients came to our A&E departments and urgent care centre last year - that’s more than 390 patients per day, or one person every four minutes.
"Most people using A&E genuinely need its services and are suffering a life threatening or real emergency. However, there are also people who come because they feel mildly unwell, have a cough, cold, a minor cut or other everyday ailments.
"They could be getting the right care faster somewhere more appropriate, for instance from their GP, a pharmacist, or even by treating themselves.
"As well as your GP and local pharmacy, there are a number of NHS services locally, including GP-led health centres, walk-in centres and minor injuries units.
"Using the full range of services available will mean patients get seen as quickly as possible. It also means that staff in our A&Es can treat people who do have a critical or life-threatening condition more quickly too."
Alternatives to visiting A&E:
If you feel unwell, unsure or confused, call NHS Direct on 0845 4647 or visit www.nhs.uk
If you're suffering from a very minor illness or injury like a cough, sore throat or a grazed knee, visit your local pharmacy
If you have an illness or injury that won't go away, like ear pain, vomiting, or back ache, make an appointment with your GP
If you have a minor illness or injury like a cut, a sprain or a rash visit your local NHS walk-in centre, NHS urgent care centre, or NHS minor injuries unit, without making an appointment
In life-threatening situations such as chest pain, difficulty in breathing, blacking out, stroke or major blood loss always call 999 or go to your nearest A&E
For more information visit www.choosewell.org.uk
Article from Hardeep Matharu at epsomguardian
We love the great local businesses and community
The following Cookies are used on this Site. Users who allow all the Cookies will enjoy the best experience and all functionality on the Site will be available to you.
You can choose to disable any of the Cookies by un-ticking the box below but if you do so your experience with the Site is likely to be diminished.
In order to interact with this site.
To help us to measure how users interact with content and pages on the Site so we can make
things better.
To show content from Google Maps.
To show content from YouTube.
To show content from Vimeo.
To share content across multiple platforms.
To view and book events.
To show user avatars and twitter feeds.
To show content from TourMkr.
To interact with Facebook.
To show content from WalkInto.