WINTER may be a distant memory, but the amount of people going to accident and emergency in Worcestershire remains high.

A report presented to the governing board of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust on Wednesday, June 25 showed slightly more than 13,000 people visited the A&E departments at Worcestershire Royal Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital in May.

This is more than 1,000 more than in December and January – traditionally the busiest time for the department.

The trust’s non-executive director Andrew Sleigh said the figures could be down to the relatively mild winter.

“The idea of winter pressures seems to be a bit obsolete,” he said.

“I do think that’s important – the last two winters have been relative mild but if we have one like we did in 2011 and 2012 we could face a very serious situation.”

During the winter South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group launched a campaign dubbed Is A&E For Me? encouraging people to visit minor injury units or their doctors rather than A&E except in a genuine emergency.

There are five Minor Injury Units in Worcestershire in Kidderminster and Tenbury, both of which are open 24 hours a day, as well as Malvern, Evesham and Bromsgrove.

For more information visit www.southworcsccg.nhs.uk/is-aande-for-me.