MILLIONS of patients are seeking help in A&Es for “minor” conditions, with almost 1.9 million people seeking help for headaches over five years.

About 1.4 million A&E attendances in England from 2020-21 to 2024-25 were due to a cough, 1.2 million were for a sore throat, one million were due to earache and 290,000 where the chief complaint was constipation, according to analysis of official date.

Medics recorded that “no abnormality was detected” for 2.2 million A&E attendances in 2024-25, while more than half a million patients left before a first diagnosis was made.

Royal College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Ian Higginson said that while some of the conditions “may seem minor, there will be serious illness in some of the patients described.”

He said: “However… people are arriving through the doors of our emergency departments (EDs) with issues that we would not traditionally consider as ‘urgent’ and require emergency care.

“This is a symptom of the healthcare system not working as it was designed to.”

Dr Higginson warned that services are at capacity, and that the system “has also become unnecessarily complex and patients can struggle to figure it out.”

“If people are unable to access services, or they are unsure of other services available to help them, they will come to ED,” he said.

Royal College of General Practitioners chairwoman Professor Victoria Tzortziou Brown called for “better, clearer systems to help patients navigate the NHS and get to the right place first time,” and “better resourced general practice so that we can alleviate pressure across the health service.”

National Pharmacy Association chief executive Henry Gregg said community pharmacies could treat many minor conditions.

NHS England urged patients to use alternatives such as GPs, pharmacists and NHS 111.