"MISLEADING" adverts warning patients not to attend Worcester's A&E unless they are suffering from a 'life-threatening emergency' have been banned by an independent regulator.

NHS bosses in Worcestershire used the adverts and regularly sent out press releases to the media urging patients not to attend A&E at Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester unless they were suffering a life-threatening condition.

They even ran a "Choose Well" campaign designed to educate patients to use the correct service rather than simply attending A&E.

Press statements from the South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, which holds the purse strings for local care, and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages the hospital, warned of 'high demand' on A&E and encouraged patients to use other services including GPs, NHS 111 and Minor Injury Units at Malvern, Evesham, Tenbury, Bromsgrove and Kidderminster.

For example a press release in January from the CCG said: "People in Worcestershire are being advised that, unless they have a life threatening condition, they should not go to Accident and Emergency."

However, this advertising has been banned for being "misleading and potentially harmful".

It began when Brent Patient Voice complained that the claim, also made in their areas, was misleading and potentially harmful because it could discourage patients with serious medical conditions or injuries that were not necessarily life-threatening from going to their nearest hospital A&E.

The Brent Clinical Commissioning Group, which is responsible for planning and buying many of the health services needed by the 325,000 people who live in Brent, said the ads focused on diverting unnecessary cases away from local A&E departments to more appropriate settings such as urgent care centres and minor injuries units, and their primary aim was patient safety.

There were well-established protocols in place in order to safely refer all patients needing A&E treatment who presented at urgent care centres, it said.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) understood that there were certain medical conditions and injuries such as some broken bones, facial injuries requiring maxillofacial surgery and serious eye injuries that were not life-threatening but needed A&E treatment.

It said: "We acknowledged that the intention behind the ad campaign was to encourage the appropriate use of A&E services, so as to ensure the proper allocation of NHS resources and patient safety, and was not to deter individuals from accessing A&E services if they genuinely required them.

"However, we noted that the claim 'A&E is for life-threatening emergencies only' was an absolute claim, even though there were exceptions, and we were concerned that individuals presenting with the conditions listed above might be deterred from seeking urgent treatment at A&E as a result of seeing the ads."

Brent Patient Voice said it tried several times but failed to get the BCCG to withdraw the ads.

The group's chairman, Robin Sharp, said: "It is vital that ads like these should be truthful. We regret that we had to take it so far, because we remain keen to work with NHS colleagues to improve services for the people of Brent."

A spokesman for South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group said: "We welcome the findings from the Advertising Standards Agency.

"It’s important that people in Worcestershire know their options when it comes to their care.

"This includes access to local urgent care services, GPs, pharmacists and 111. We aim to be clear and help people to understand the part they can play to ease the pressure on A&E and make sure they receive the care they need as quickly as possible.

"We do promote the use of other services so that the public can make an informed decision on which health service is most appropriate for their need.”