A&E attendances increase by 22% in 10 years

The number of people attending accident and emergency departments increased by 2% in 2017/18 compared with the year before, and has risen by 22% over the last 10 years, official figures show.

The statistics show the average growth per year over the period since 2008/09 was 2%, compared with the England population average growth of 1% per year over a similar period.

There were around twice as many A&E attendances – three million – for the 10% of the population living in the most deprived areas compared with the least deprived 10%, at 1.4 million.

NHS Digital’s report – Hospital Accident and Emergency Activity 2017/18, created in partnership with NHS England – shows Monday is the busiest day of the week for A&E departments, and the most popular time of arrival is between 10am and midday.

Patients arriving from 8am to 10am generally spend the shortest times in A&E, with 17% of patients arriving between 8am and 8.59am waiting an hour or less.

The figures show 90% of arrivals between 9am and 9.59am spend four hours or less waiting.

The number of re-attendances to A&E within seven days was 1.8 million and accounted for 8.6% of reported attendances.

Saturday and Sunday have the highest proportion of re-attendances within seven days, with Saturday the highest at 9.1%.

There were 23.8 million attendances at A&E departments in England during 2017/18.

Looking at all arrival times, 1.6% (333,000) of attendances spent more than 12 hours in A&E, compared with 1.3% (262,000) in 2016/17.

The report includes attendances from all types of A&E departments ranging from major departments, single specialty, consultant-led emergency departments, minor injury units and walk-in centres.