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The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Primary Care and Public Health has called for a National Strategy for Self Care to combat the rise in people using A&E and GPs for self-treatable conditions.

Each year, there are 52 million visits to GP surgeries and 3.7 million visits to A&E for issues that could be managed at home or in a pharmacy. This has cost the NHS more than £10 billion over the last five years.

The APPG has outlined several recommendations for the strategy, including clearer, more consistent information on self-treatable conditions; a system-wide approach to improving health literacy; a switch in the NHS funding model away from 'care and repair' and towards prevention; and compulsory health education for children.

Bob Blackman MP, co-chair of the Group, said that low health literacy €must be addressed urgently if we are to see positive improvements in how people look after their health and how they use health services€.