How Tweed hospitals are performing

The latest results were released today.

The Tweed Heads Hospital. Picture: SCOTT POWICK

NORTHERN NSW Hospitals are continuing to perform well despite an activity increase in already busy emergency departments.

The Bureau of Health Information's latest quarterly report found 53,799 people were seen in emergency departments across the Northern NSW Local Health District (NNSWLHD) between January and March 2019 - an increase of 1265 patients, or 2.4 per cent on the same quarter last year.

At the Tweed Hospital, 13,491 patients presented to the emergency department with 86.8 per cent of patients treated on time, while 87.7 per cent left the emergency department within four hours.

To reach the on time target, patients must be treated within 10 minutes.

At Murwillumbah, emergency department presentations remained stable at over 4500 this quarter.

Of those, 86.8 per cent of patients were treated on time and 87.7 per cent left the emergency department within four hours.

For elective surgeries, the Tweed Hospital saw an increase of 3.1 per cent, up to 857 from 831.

This included a 20.8 per cent rise in urgent elective surgery.

Despite the increase in demand, 84.2 per cent of all surgeries and 99.6 per cent of urgent surgeries were performed on time.

In Murwillumbah, surgery activity increased to 395, or 3.9 per cent more procedures performed for the quarter (15 more).

100 per cent of urgent surgery was completed on time.

NNSWLHD Chief Executive, Wayne Jones said staff should be proud of their high levels of performance and quality care during "unprecedented” levels of activity across the board.

"Our staff are doing an incredible job delivering the best level of patient care possible in increasingly busy conditions,” Mr Jones said.

"There were more than 1,260 extra presentations to our emergency departments in the first quarter of 2019, and an increase of almost 30 per cent in resuscitation cases - the highest priority emergency.

"Despite these presentation increases, we still saw 77.6 per cent of patients treated on time and our median time for patients waiting in the emergency department only deteriorate by 2 minutes to around 2 hours.”