THE number of people being admitted to Oxfordshire hospitals as an emergency has risen 10 per cent in a year despite a campaign to cut it.

Health bosses last night admitted the rise was unexpected, and partly blamed the increase on an ‘ageing population’.

Patients are admitted as an emergency for example when they suffer strokes and heart attack, or require emergency surgery.

According to figures released by the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust, 13,842 people have been admitted to the John Radcliffe in Oxford and the Horton in Banbury as an emergency between April 2009 and March this year.

In the previous 12 months, 12,545 patients were urgently admitted.

The figures include A&E admissions.

In 2009 NHS Oxfordshire, the county’s primary care trust, launched the Choose Well campaign encouraging Oxfordshire people to take better care of their health to prevent them being admitted as an emergency.

The campaign came after it was revealed that thousands of people were going to A&E when they did not need to.

The only UK hospital trust to have a larger increase over the period was Basingstoke and North Hampshire, which saw a 14 per cent increase in admissions.

ORH clincial services director Paul Brennan said: “It’s partly the impact of an ageing population. As the number of older people in our community increases, the number of people at risk of requiring emergency admission to hospital also grows.

“Medical advances mean that we are able to treat patients more effectively and this should enable patients to leave hospital again after a shorter stay.”

In 2004 changes in GP contracts allowed them to opt out of providing an out-of-hours service.

Mr Brennan said since then it had fallen to the hospitals to see patients if there is an urgent problem during the evenings and at weekends, instead of receiving treatment from their GP at home.

Mr Brennan said the John Radcliffe’s role as a regional and specialist centre also means stroke, cancer and heart attack patients are transferred to the city from surrounding areas, which all contributed to the high statistics.

He added: “We are working with partners in the NHS to address this issue.

“It’s partly about education of the community about the alternative sources of support and care available to patients and partly about the way in which services are organised.

“We have a GP based in our emergency department at peak times, and this has helped increase the number of patients that can be treated without admission to hospital.”

Mr Brennan added: “Pilot work being done by NHS Oxfordshire, the ORH, Community Health Oxfordshire and local GPs in Abingdon, will also provide us with important information about how services might be better arranged to ensure that patients get the right treatment locally when admission to an acute hospital is not appropriate.”