People with minor ailments are being urged not to clog Tauranga Hospital's Emergency Department, to ensure help is not delayed for those in need of critical care.

ED clinical lead Dr Suzanne Moran says the department's workload is being unnecessarily increased by patients with minor illnesses, who should first seek pharmacist advice or see a GP.

Katikati St John station manager Dick Megchelse and intensive care paramedic Rob Burgess. Photo by Tracy Hardy.

Suzanne's call follows an extremely busy weekend when urgent attention to 'very sick” patients was diverted by a long queue of non-critical patients.

'I would ask patients to bear in mind our staff are a limited resource working under pressure. Patients should only attend the ED if their problem is an emergency.”

ED patient numbers jumped 4.7 per cent last month, compared to June 2013, from 3790 to 3970.

To help deal with the rise staff numbers have been boosted, with plans for further additions during the next six months. There are now three doctors on night duty instead of two.

St John has also responded to increased demand by putting an extra ambulance and crew on the road for July and August to cope with what it expects to be the Bay of Plenty's busiest winter for callouts.

St John district operations manager Jeremy Gooders says the introduction of predictive technology to accurately forecast callouts is enabling St John to adapt to meet demand.

Jeremy says moving resources around and adjusting rosters, with the extra ambulance on call from 10am-4pm, will minimise delays during busy periods.

'It means we can still get our most urgent patients to care as quickly as possible,” says Jeremy, who stresses people should never avoid calling 111 when in difficulty.

'When people call 111 there is a full service available to them. The person states what's wrong and we can go from sending an ambulance to providing advice if it's a low acuteness situation.”

Jeremy says callouts are rising, with a daily average of 100 during the last week compared to the norm of 90.

He attributes an 8.6 per cent annual increase in workload in urban Bay of Plenty during the last year to the area's ageing population.