About NHS
An A&E department (also known as the emergency department) deals with genuine life-threatening emergencies. Each year the NHS provides around 110 million urgent same-day patient contacts. Around 85 million cases out of these are urgent GP appointments, and the rest are A&E or minor injuries-type visits. Some estimates suggest that between 1.5 and 3 million people who come to A&E each year could have their needs addressed in other parts of the urgent care system.