OVER 65s are heading to A&E for reassurance instead of visiting a GP or pharmacist, health bosses say. 

The chief operating officer from Royal Bolton Hospital told health chiefs that there were certain patterns emerging in A&E which created difficulties for doctors and nurses.

Andy Ennis told Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) that both the over 65s and 20-35 age groups were "by-passing primary care".

He said: "They are coming it seems for reassurance."

Mr Ennis was updating Bolton CCG on A&E performance at Royal Bolton Hospital, which has been struggling for some time to see patients within its four-hour target for treatment or referral.

Bolton has been missing its targets but it and Tameside Hospital are the only two in Greater Manchester not asked to submit data about A&E targets in the wake of NHS intervention into the regions emergency departments.

READ MORE: NHS intervenes over poor A&E performances across Greater Manchester

Mr Ennis told the CCG there were a lot of positives at the hospital concerning improvement. He said the time it takes to receive an ambulance and send it on its way was down massively.

The number of days patients were staying in hospital was also reduced.

The hospital's A&E performance peaked in October with 91.3 per cent but has been dropping again since then. The hospital has been seeing on average 82.6 per cent of its A&E patients within the four hours but in February this dropped to just 79 per cent.

Mr Ennis called this an "anomaly" saying: "Every day in February we got 44 patients more than the previous February but we weren't admitting more patients. It's difficult to understand why that is."

Royal Bolton Hospital has been building a new, modern A&E building and this has just fully opened. Mr Ennis hopes this will lead to improvements to patient's waiting times and help staff send patients to more appropriate services if A&E is not the right place for them through a system known as streaming.