He said people put emergency services under extreme pressure by visiting emergency departments, calling out of hours medical services and GPs.
Health boards will draw up plans within six weeks to improve unscheduled care outside hospital, for example out of hours GP services.
The GP out of hours service will allow patients to be seen by the most appropriate doctor for an illness or injury.
Speaking to the BBC, he denied he was blaming doctors - but called for a fresh look at the out of hours system.
GPs working out of hours and pharmacists did not always have access to patient records which also led to prescribing and monitoring mistakes.
"We believe we have the right underlying systems, policies and procedures to ensure a safe and robust out of hours service, " he said.
The poll for the technology solutions provider the Stone Group also suggested just 14% of schools offered out of hours technical support to staff.
The consultation focuses on five areas - the midwifery-led birthing unit, accident and emergency and out of hours, planned care, acute medicine and children's services.
And I don't think they should necessarily be the ones who provide that out of hours service all the time, because they work very, very hard anyway.
"We've had to put extra surgeries on and I spoke to one of the out of hours managers and he described the situation as manic, " he said.
The report said it had been established that midwives were required to store such diaries at home in the event of needing to refer patients out of hours.
"Safety of care delivery remains the top priority to maintain but unfortunately the rising numbers of patients, especially out of hours, continues to be a major challenge, " he added.
Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said people in Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire, were being "denied" acceptable GP out of hours cover and called on Mr Salmond to persuade Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon to intervene.
The MDU said that some of these complaints could have arisen because of breakdowns in communication and could be avoided with the establishment of good communication links between GPs and out of hours providers.
But NHS Tayside said providing care in rural areas - whether in or out of hours - was a priority, and insisted the arrangements it had in place to cover the area were reliable and safe.
But he stressed that as those surveyed would be the first paediatricians to assess such children, especially out of hours, they needed to know how to spot dangerously underweight children and teenagers and signs of severe complications.
BBC: Doctors 'miss' underweight children, UCL study suggests
He rejected Mr Wells assertion that local GPs were unhappy and said the trust had been engaging with GPs "not just in the wider community, but those general practitioners who work in the out of hours service for some time".
It took 20 tasks out of the line and 2.1 hours out of the 22 person-hours it takes to build a vehicle.
But under the new GP contract, doctors will be able to opt out of providing out-of-hours care - with this responsibility passing to Primary Care Trusts.
Mr Loughton said increasing numbers of people were using the department instead of out-of-hours services.
It said there was "confusion" over the exact role of out-of-hours care and whether it was really there for urgent care.
Under the recent health service changes, overall control of out-of-hours services now lies with officials at NHS England rather than Mr Hunt's department.
In February last year, community leaders said they had received an apology over the level of out-of-hours emergency medical cover in west Ardnamurchan.
People living in the area had concerns about a lack of out-of-hours cover following the retirement of the district nurse and two GPs a year ago.
Similarly, a study of large-firm lawyers found that hours worked both in and out of the office positively affected men's chances for partnership, but hours worked out of the office did not help women make partner: Only face time mattered for women.
And he said the last Labour government's decision to allow GPs to opt out of after hours care was "disastrous".
Erica Hale of Salt Lake City, Utah, says her son, Isaiah, sometimes cried "20 out of 24 hours" when he was an infant.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives used other figures from PCTs to show the cost of providing out-of-hours GP care under a new contract, which came in in 2004, is three times what was expected.
But David Heaney, of the Centre for Rural Health, said his impression was that "little progress" had been made on the issue of delivering out-of-hours services in rural areas over the past few years.
"Community representatives are involved in all discussions and in the working groups that have been set up to look at primary care in hours and out-of-hours services and at the emergency and immediate care response for the area, " she said.
BBC: Protest held over remote GP cover in Glenelg and Arnisdale
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