Coffee, a chat and coaching help ‘cure’ the A&E regulars

HABITUAL users of Accident and Emergency services are being kept away under a new scheme to offer a coffee and counselling to those coming to casualty for the wrong reasons.

The initiative, set to be rolled out nationwide, comes amid soaring emergency admissions to hospitals, which have risen 50 per cent in a decade.

Paramedics in the North East are among those who have introduced schemes that attempt to identify those who repeatedly call 999 or turn to A&E – and get to the root of their problems.

One scheme, in Blackpool, saw A&E visits from such users fall 90 per cent.

Patients are classed as frequent callers if they turn to such services at least 12 times in three months.

The High Intensity User programme in Blackpool identified 23 patients, many troubled by mental health problems or loneliness, who had visited A&E 703 times in the previous three months, mostly by ambulance.

Such patients were offered a coffee and a chat, given personal mentoring and one-to-one coaching, the chance to get involved in community activities and a non-emergency number to call.

News of the initiative comes as a report by the British Medical Association shows soaring emergency admissions this winter, leaving four in 10 NHS trusts recording occupancy levels of 100 per cent at some stage.

Annual emergency admissions have risen from 3million a decade ago to 4.5million now, official figures show.

NHS Providers say Government pledges to bring patient care closer to home by developing community services have “fallen flat”. More than half of trusts providing such care said funding in their area had fallen this year.