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" The number of parents taking children with common medical problems to emergency departments instead of their local GP has soared in recent years, new research shows. A study in the Emergency Medicine Journal found that the number attending the children&amp;#039;s emergency department at Queen&amp;#039;s Medical Centre in Nottingham rose by 42 per cent in the ten years leading up to 2007-08. Researchers, who looked at the medical records of under-15s, discovered that 14,724 children with medical problems such as coughs and rashes attended the emergency department in 2007-08, up from 10,369 in 1997. Yet the overall number of children taken to emergency care departments remained roughly the same over the course of the decade. The study authors wrote: &amp;#039;Over a ten-year period, attendances to the paediatric emergency department have remained similar; however, there has been a disproportionate rise in the number attending with medical conditions. &amp;#039;The presenting problems also remain similar, although there has been a significant reduction in those presenting with difficulty in breathing.&amp;#039; A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that the government is developing a strategy to deliver high-quality urgent care services to both children and adults, 24/7. &amp;#039;Our vision is to replace the ad-hoc, uncoordinated system that has developed over more than a decade, and has been characterised by poor quality and too much variation,&amp;#039; they added. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/news/a21030/more-kids-going-to-emergency-units-with-common-medical-problems/>