The number of cases handled under the Manchester triage system, which determines the clinical priority, indicate that almost 2.2 million of consultations were given a green or blue bracelet, that is were considered not very or not at all urgent, according to data available on the Transparência do SNS (National Health Service Transparency) portal and analysed by Lusa News Agency.

The attribution of green and blue bracelets means that users could be referred to other health services, such as primary healthcare centres.

The 40% proportion is in line with figures in recent years.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Health published figures showing that hospital emergencies handled 6,360,000 visits last year, slightly up on 2017, when there was a reduction.

The analysis by Lusa of the data on the portal took into account the total 5.5 million cases given one of the five Manchester triage colours. There are cases to which no bracelet is attributed and others with white bracelets (for administrative reasons or specific clinical cases).

The colours are red (emergency), orange (very urgent), yellow (urgent), green (not very urgent) and blue (not urgent).

The 2018 data show that yellow was the colour most often attributed in A&E departments last year, with 2.6 million visits.

Orange was given to fewer than 600,000 cases, while the red was attributed to 20,500.

According to the numbers on the portal, there were last year also more than 700,000 cases without Manchester screening and some 160,000 cases to which a white bracelet was attributed.