Patients are waiting longer in public hospital emergency departments to see a doctor, According to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW),
During 2023-24 there were 8.8 million patients treated at casualty with 74 per overall seen on time.
This was a slight increase by 2 per cent from the previous period. Urgent care clinics
Many Australians have never used an Urgent Care Clinic as an alternative to an emergency department, but more are on the way.
Overall, there has been an increase in the amount of time that patients spend in emergency departments.
Just over half — 55 per cent — of those admissions were seen within four hours, similar to 2022-23 (56 per cent), but down from 61 per cent in 2021–22.
About one in two patients were seen within 18 minutes, lower than the typical waiting time for 2022-23 and 2021-22, which were both 20 minutes.
What is considered ‘seen on time’?
AIHW states that a patient is considered to have been ‘seen on time’ based on the definition of the triage category, which is as follows:
- Resuscitation: Immediate (within seconds).
- Emergency: within 10 minutes
- Urgent: within 30 minutes
- Semi-urgent: within 60 minutes
- Non-urgent: within 120 minutes
Overall, 67 per cent of patients were ‘seen on time’ for their triage category.
That included 100 per cent of those requiring immediate care (resuscitation) and 67 per cent of those requiring care within 10 minutes (emergency care).
About 90 per cent of emergency department patients were seen and then discharged or transferred within 10 hours and 45 minutes, an increase of 3 hours since the 2019-20 period.
Elective surgery admissions hit record highs
Public hospital admissions for elective surgery were the highest on record in 2023-24, according to the AIHW.
It indicated a return to pre-COVID levels of elective surgical activity.
There were 771,600 admissions from public hospital elective surgery waitlists in 2023-24 — a 5 per cent increase from 735,500 in the previous year.
AIHW spokesperson Clara Jellie said the increase followed a period of considerable disruption to the health system during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Elective surgeries are procedures that are deemed medically necessary, but are planned surgeries that are not conducted as a result of an emergency presentation, and as a result, may be subject to delays,” Ms Jellie said.
The data showed there were Improvements in waiting times for elective surgery with 50 per cent of patients admitted within 46 days in the 2023-24 period.
That’s an improvement from 49 days in the previous year.
Nine in 10 patients were admitted within 329 days and about 6.4 per cent of patients waited more than a year — down from 9.6 per cent in the previous reporting period.
The largest increase in elective surgery admissions compared with 2022–23 was recorded in the Australian Capital Territory, with 19 per cent and Victoria at 10 per cent.
The most common procedure was cataract extraction, accounting for 11 per cent of elective surgeries.
Although the most common surgical specialty was general surgery, representing 20 per cent of all surgeries, the areas of surgical specialty that have seen the greatest percentage increases in admissions from were vascular surgery (12 per cent increase compared with 2022-23) and paediatric surgery (8.2 per cent annual average growth since 2019-20).
Emergency ties are product of there being insufficient accommodation on the wards.
This is as a result of the lack of resources to fully utilise all possible beds on the wards due to the lack of enough suitably trained staff in all disciplines., doctors, and nurses, orderlies, and others
This came be because the hospitals have insufficient funds, universities are not training enough people to a sufficient standard to meet the needs of hospitals.
With regards to waiting lists the published figure are totally misleading. What is also is needed is to report how many patients are awaiting being added to the official waiting list.
In many instances this number is far greater than the official waiting St.