Patients wanting to use A&E will have to call ahead before attending, NHS leaders have been told.
A joint board meeting of NHS England and NHS Improvement heard the scheme will be rolled out before December after successful pilots in parts of the UK.
Patients will book using the NHS 111 service to help hospitals better manage patient numbers.
Hospital leaders were also told the four-hour waiting time target is likely to be axed before winter.
Pauline Philip, national director of urgent and emergency care, said the plan is to introduce a “different social norm”, adding: “People traditionally have accessed emergency care by turning up in an emergency department and now we’re saying there are better ways of doing this.”
The target of seeing 95% of patients within four hours has been missed every month since 2015 and critics want it scrapped.
Ministers and NHS bosses say it will be replaced by a system which means patients with more severe complaints are seen quicker while those with minor ones face much longer waits.
The NHS is braced for its worst ever winter with flu and Covid-19.
