The latest Healthcare Quarterly, activity and performance report from the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) has been released. The report covers emergency department, ambulance, admitted patients and elective surgery for the period October to December 2017. The report compares the same quarter last year. Southern NSW Local Health District (SNSWLHD) has continued to improve across the board on a number of important health care indicators. The District experienced a 6.4 per cent increase in emergency department (ED) presentations, with a rise to 83.8 per cent of patients leaving the ED within 4 hours, well above the NSW average of 73.6 per cent. There was continued improvement in the median time spent in the LHD’s ED, decreasing to 1 hour 53 minutes, compared to the NSW average of 2 hours 44 minutes. Meanwhile the average time spent waiting for non-urgent elective surgery throughout SNSWLHD also dropped by 32 to 149 days, compared to the NSW average of 212 days. Locally, the latest figures show continued improvements across the board throughout the Eurobodalla in emergency department (ED) performance, despite a rise in local presentations. Moruya District Hospital increased its Emergency Treatment Performance (ETP) with 80 per cent of patients spending less than four hours in ED, a rise of 2 per cent to be well clear of the NSW average. Meanwhile Batemans Bay Hospital improved its ETP to 87.7 per cent, despite a 13.2 per cent rise in presentations. The service also improved its performance in a range of elective surgery measures, with significant drops in elective surgery wait list times at Batemans Bay Hospital for ophthalmology, urology and orthopaedic surgery. The median wait time for ophthalmology decreased from 175 to 142 days, urology dropped from 39 to 15 days while orthopaedic surgery decreased from 213 to 135 days. While 100 per cent of all patients waiting to receive elective surgery at Moruya District Hospital, were treated within the clinically recommended timeframe. “This is a great result, reflecting the hard-work of all of the staff throughout the Eurobodalla Health Service, and my sincere thanks to all the staff who have worked tirelessly to achieve these results,” said Ms Kennedy.The full results are available at the Bureau of Health Information website, bhi.nsw.gov.au.
