In 2009-10, 39,000 people who used A&E were not given any treatment.

PEOPLE attending county hospitals when they did not need to cost tax payers £3.4m last year, it has been revealed.

More than 65,000 people left A&E departments at Kettering General Hospital and Northampton General Hospital without receiving any treatment.

A similar problem is people dialling 999 inappropriately, and health officials are trying to educate residents about when they should dial 999 or use A&E and when they should use other facilities.

Lisa Yates, a paramedic serving the Corby area, said: “Coming up to the winter period we get an influx of calls which are inappropriate for us to deal with and which can be dealt with effectively without dialling 999 or going to A&E.

“People should call NHS Direct or out-of-hours doctors, or help themselves by looking on the NHS website.

“They should be vigilant with cleaning their hands, especially if they are a carer, so viruses are not passed on.

“There is the added problem that, if we take somebody with an illness like diarrhoea and vomiting into hospital, it can spread and mean we have to close wards down.

“Dialling 999 or using A&E should be one of the last resorts.”

The problem of people using A&E without needing to has increased over the past two years and health officials want to reduce it by offering information and advice.

In 2009-10, 39,000 people who used A&E were not given any treatment. This number increased to 65,700 last year.

It costs the NHS £52 for every person who uses A&E, meaning the health service lost £2.3m in 2009-10 and £3.4m in 2010-11.

Northamptonshire NHS has already started campaigning to make sure this winter does not cause the same problems as previous years.

The influenza vaccination is available now for at risk groups – including those aged over 65, who have long-term health problems, are pregnant or are carers.

County GP, Dr Jonathan Ireland, said getting the flu jab as soon as possible will help prevent problems faced last winter, when many hospitals, pharmacies and GP practices ran out of supplies of the vaccine.

He said: “The problem is that people don’t think about winter when it’s still summer, but prevention needs to start now.”

For more information visit www.northamptonshire.nhs.uk.