Hospitals across UK are facing a lot of pressure as their emergency departments are receiving several patients due to the failure of GP out-of-hours services. The increasing number of patients approaching the emergency departments of various hospitals has further confirmed this.

As per the available figures, the number of patients seeking A&E admissions has increased by almost 12% in the last few months. The main reason for this is that doctors were allowed to skip work during nights and weekends, after a new controversial contract was adopted.

It has also been noted that many people are also going to emergency departments, even for minor problems. The main reason for this is that they do not understand how to properly access their local out-of-hours service.

A report prepared by an independent health charity has revealed that the number of people attending A&E services has increased by almost 1.35million. This has also put an additional strain of £330million on NHS, every year. It has also put additional stress on the hospitals and their staff members.

The doctors, who are working in the emergency departments, also stress that most of the patients do not know about how to approach their local out-of-hours service.

The numbers of emergency admissions now account for 35% of all hospital admissions and it costs the NHS £11billion, every year. The number of patients, who are admitted to the hospitals A&E departments and discharged within 24 hours, has increased from 42% to 49%.