South Australia heads for big flu season

South Australian health authorities are bracing for another serious flu season this winter after the state's worst flu season on record in 2014.

So far in 2015 there have been 1777 flu cases compared with 757 at the same time last year.

But in 2014 SA had a total of 11,050 cases, more than double the 4820 reported in 2013.

Health Minister Jack Snelling said local hospitals had developed a number of strategies to deal with the additional demand.

These include improving the speed at which patients are seen in emergency departments, home support programs to be allow patients to be discharged earlier and extra capacity in country hospitals.

A new advertising campaign will also encourage people with minor issues to see their local GP rather than present to an emergency department.

"By doing this, it will free up our hard-working ED doctors and nurses to see and treat patients who need urgent care more quickly," the minister said.