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26 October 2007 Hospital performance improves despite busy winter and increasing demand
NSW Minister for Health Reba Meagher toady paid tribute to the hard work of doctors, nurses, ambulance officers and other staff across the NSW health system for the sustained improvement in hospital performance in September 2007. Ms Meagher told Budget Estimates Committee at Parliament House that NSW hospitals continued to perform above national benchmarks despite significant increases in demand - particularly during winter. "This winter was one of the busiest on record for our hospitals," Ms Meagher said. "We were faced with one of the coldest winters in more than 20 years, a particularly virulent strain of influenza and increases in many other winter illnesses. "Despite this, the most recent hospital performance data for September 2007 shows that the improvements in elective surgery waiting lists continue to be sustained." Across NSW, the number of patients waiting more than 12 months for non-urgent elective surgery has continued to fall, from 10,514 patients in January 2005 to only 184 patients in September 2007. Similarly, there are just 133 surgical patients waiting longer than 30 days for their urgent elective surgery. In January 2005 this figure was in excess of 5,000 patients. "These results show that the Government's Predictable Surgery Program - targeting elective surgery waiting lists - is continuing to achieve results," Ms Meagher said. "Demand for elective surgery is continuing to increase, with more than 200,000 elective surgical procedures performed in the last financial year. Already in the first three months of this financial year more than 51,000 elective surgical procedures have been undertaken. "Similar improvements have also been recorded in hospital emergency departments despite significant increases in patient attendances." In September 2007, 76 per cent of ambulance patients were offloaded within 30 minutes - a two percentage point improvement in performance compared to the previous year despite the growth in the call on services. Emergency Departments always give priority to the most life threatening cases and NSW hospitals continue to treat 100 per cent of the most seriously ill within the designated two-minute timeframe. For those patients classified as Triage Category 2 - or 'imminently life threatening' - the performance in treating patients within 10 minutes in September was 3 percentage points above the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine's target level of 80 per cent. The number of Triage Category 3 patients treated within 30 minutes in September was 70 per cent, which is a 4 per cent improvement on September 2006. Significant improvements have also been achieved for those patients who are classified as Triage Category 4. In September 2007, more than 74 per cent of Triage Category 4 patients had treatment commenced within 60 minutes. This is four percentage points above the 70 per cent benchmark set by the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine. Performance in Triage Category 5 in September 2007 was 88 per cent, 18 per cent above the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine benchmark. The percentage of patients who wait less than 8 hours in an Emergency Department to get an inpatient hospital bed (Emergency Admission Performance) was 76 per cent in September 2007. The biggest improvements have been achieved in:
"These improvements are the result of careful planning, increased investment and support given to clinicians and nurses by the Iemma Government through the clinical reform program and surgical services taskforce," Ms Meagher said. "We are investing in real change to clinical care and practice. "We are providing new information systems that support clinicians and managers in better understanding and managing the growing workload our hospitals face." For a range of health information, go online to www.health.nsw.gov.au |
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