Some people go to their GP and that helps reduce the load. But see the need for out of hours doctors clinics being placed in the same place as A&E units - Swindon has electronic signs telling you the estimated wait times for each unit, with big signs telling you where out of hours doctors unit is.
Continuing to remind people about pharmacists, NHS_Direct, GPs, and out of hours GPs is helping reduce pressure on the NHS, but still.
See also the gently cheeky "Acute admission units" - a method for A&E units to avoid the penalties for keeping people longer than 4 hours by cycling people out of A&E and into aau for monitoring and then release or admission into hospital proper.
Over the past 5 years I have seen many A&E units; and spent many many hours in them. They have all been very busy, and often with many people who probably didn't need to be there. (Although I have no way on knowing that; I am not a doctor and I have no medical training and there's no way of telling just by looking at someone if they should be there or not.)
The most serious problem in all of them was people turning up for things that were very minor - a splinter; a bruised ankle; some other very minor injuries. These are the kind of things that may need treatment, but you don't need to go right that instant to hospital. I didn't even mind the people who were waiting quietly, but you hear people grumbling about the wait times. I'm not sure they realised that there are minors, majors, and resus, and that if there are 8 ambulances outside it's likely that majors is chock-a-block and all the clinicians are a bit busy tonight.