NSW Hospital emergency departments with the longest waiting times

NSW emergency departments have experienced the busiest quarter on record, with almost one in three patients not being treated in time. SEE HOW YOUR HOSPITAL COMPARES.

• Western Sydney hospital wait times blow out
• Longest and shortest elective surgery wait lists

FOUR out of 10 patients at the Northern Beaches Hospital emergency department do not start treatment on time, according to damning new data revealing the new facility is failing to keep pace with other major hospitals.

It comes as NSW emergency departments experienced their busiest quarter on record with new figures showing there were 750,000 presentations from January to March — up 42,000 people or 5.9 per cent on the same quarter last year.

The state has been hit by a horror early flu season with 49 influenza-related deaths so far this year and 50 outbreaks at aged care facilities.

The newly opened Northern Beaches Hospital’s emergency department only saw four out of ten patients within the recommended time. Picture: AAP

The latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report shows 40.3 per cent of patients at the privately-run Northern Beaches Hospital didn’t start their treatment on time during the first quarter of 2019.

That figure was significantly higher than reported at other similar facilities.

On average 28.1 per cent of patients in hospitals across NSW did not start their treatment within recommended time frames.

But results were far worse at emergency departments in Westmead and Auburn hospitals, where more than half of patients didn’t start treatment on time.

The Northern Beaches Hospital has been hit with a string of teething issues since it opened last October including reported shortages of basic medical supplies and mass resignations of staff.

The emergency department at Westmead performed even worse than the Northern Beaches. Picture: Jordan Shields

It will be scrutinised by a NSW parliamentary inquiry committee following a successful push by Labor in parliament last week.

“At NSW level, the timeliness of care provided to patients has declined from last year,” BHI Chief Executive Dr Diane Watson said.

“The results vary across hospitals — with some experiencing bigger drops than we see at NSW level, while others had stable or improved performance despite increased activity.”

There was also an alarming 10 per cent increase in arrivals at emergency departments by ambulance.

More than 136,000 ambulance responses were categorised as emergencies and of these, more than 6000 responses were for “life-threatening” cases.

Labor’s health spokesman Walt Secord said results at the Northern Beaches Hospital showed problems are “systemic”.

“Doctors, nurses and allied health staff are working their guts out for patients, but the problems at the Northern Beaches Hospital lay squarely at the feet of the Berejiklian Government,” he said.

But despite figures showing almost 50 per cent more patients going to the EDs in this quarter compared to the same quarter in 2010 under Labor, performance is better now with more patients leaving the ED within four hours.

The NSW Government committed to an extra 8300 frontline staff in the next term – including 5000 nurses and midwives – the biggest single workforce increase ever in Australia.

In addition, almost 200 health projects have been completed or are in progress since the Coalition took Government in 2011.

Healthscope interim chief executive officer Stephen Gameren defended the Northern Beaches Hospital saying the results also showed “above benchmark ambulance off-load times, and delivery of strong on time elective surgery performance”.

“This is a positive outcome for a hospital open for only six months. Our results are something that a mature hospital would be proud of,” he said.

NSW Health Deputy Secretary Susan Pearce said nearly three-quarters of emergency department patients, 543,000 people, started treatment on time despite the record rise in patients.

Originally published as NSW Hospital emergency departments with the longest waiting times