NSW hospitals have seen modest but promising progress in emergency department (ED) wait times,
but Health Minister Ryan Park says there’s more room for improvement.
The latest Bureau of Health Information Healthcare Quarterly report shows the majority of patients (68.3 per cent) started their ED treatment on time and almost 80 per cent (79.9 per cent) of patients who arrived by ambulance had their care transferred to ED staff within 30 minutes, both measures
reflecting small improvements compared with the same quarter in 2022.
Here in the Illawarra Shoalhaven, 66.4 per cent of patients started their treatment on time – an improvement of 7.1 percentage points from the previous December quarter.
Locally across the Illawarra Shoalhaven, the overwhelming majority of all planned surgeries were also performed on time (80.6 per cent), an 8.8 percentage point improvement compared with the same quarter in 2022.
Furthermore, nearly all urgent surgeries (99.4 per cent) were performed on time.
The NSW Government’s Surgical Care Governance Taskforce has helped to drastically reduce the number of patients exceeding the clinically recommended timeframe for planned surgery by 87.5 per cent, from 17,070 in December 2022 to 2,133 in December 2023.
Member for South Coast Liza Butler said, “I am proud to be part of a government that is focused on improving healthcare services in our local hospitals, especially in regional areas.
“I am pleased to see the measures the Minns Labor Government have implemented are starting to
show signs of improving waiting times in our local hospitals, but we have a long way to go.
“As a member of the Select Committee on Remote, Rural and Regional Health, we are working hard
to make sure everyone in our great state has access to proper and timely healthcare when they
need it,” Ms Butler said.
