A&E admissions down a third amid virus lockdown but calls to NHS 111 more than double

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Hospitals have recorded a 29% drop in A&E attendances compared to this time last year
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Emily Lawford9 April 2020

A&E attendance numbers at England hospitals last month are down a third from last year – but calls to NHS 111 have more than doubled, new figures show.

Hospitals recorded 1.53 million A&E attendances in March 2020 – 29 per cent fewer than the 2.17 million attendances logged in March 2019.

The latest figure also marks the lowest number of attendances for any calendar month since current records began in August 2010.

NHS England, which published the figures, said the drop was “likely to be a result of the Covid-19 response” – an indication that fewer people have gone to A&E departments because of the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown.

Emergency A&E admissions sharply fell last month – down 23 per cent from 555,457 in March 2019 to 427,921 in March 2020.

The number of A&E admissions where patients were transferred or discharged within four hours in March 2020 was the lowest reported for any calendar month since current records began – which NHS England again attributed to the coronavirus pandemic.

Separate figures from NHS England show that more than twice as many calls were made to the NHS 111 service in March 2020 than were made the same time last year.

In March 2020, an average of 95,600 calls a day were made, more than double the average of 46,700 a day in March 2019.

Just over 30 per cent of calls to NHS 111 last month were answered within a minute. In March 2019 a total of 85 per cent were answered in that time.

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NHS England said NHS 111 service levels had been affected since mid-February because of increased demand due to coronavirus.

The figures also that more people abandoned calls last month after waiting for some time. The proportion of calls last month abandoned after waiting longer than 30 seconds was 38.7 per cent, compared to 2.4 per cent in March 2019.

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