The number of under-10s admitted to hospital for stays of less than 48 hours was 41 per cent higher in 2006-07 than a decade before.
Children are often admitted for minor illnesses that could be better treated outside of hospital, researchers from UCL Institute of Child Health, Imperial College London and St George's Hospital NHS Trust have concluded.
The report, Increasing Short-Stay Unplanned Hospital Admissions among Children in England; Time Trends Analysis '97-'06, argued the difficulty in seeing GPs outside of surgery hours was a major reason for the increase.
It states: "Short stay unplanned hospital admission rates in young children in England have increased substantially in recent years and are not accounted for by reductions in length of in-hospital stay.
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