Bureau of Health Information report on NSW public health service performance
There are more people than ever before waiting for elective surgery except for during the Covid pandemic as waitlists blow out across NSW, damning new health data has revealed.
NSW
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There are more people than ever before waiting for elective surgery except for during the Covid pandemic as waitlists blow out across the state, damning new health data has revealed.
The number of patients who have waited longer than clinically recommended for elective surgery also jumped by 151 per cent to 8587 patients by the end of March compared to the same time last year.
The shocking figures come after the Bureau of Health Information published its quarterly report on the performance of public health services in NSW from January to March this year.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park announced the government will invest $23 million in the upcoming budget to reduce the number of overdue surgeries, acknowledging the wait list was not up to scratch.
Mr Park said the funding boost is expected to cover an additional 3500 surgeries in the next year to catch up on the backlog left by the previous government.
“For 12 years, the Liberals neglected our health system, presiding over a record number of overdue surgeries,” he said.
“We made significant progress in reducing the overdue surgeries that we inherited, down from 14,000 (to just above 8500).
“From day one, tackling overdue surgeries has been our priority … but we know there’s always more that we can do to improve the accessibility of planned surgeries.”
More than 100,600 patients were on the elective surgery waiting list by the end of March, up 7.3 per cent from 2024 and just short of the record peak during the pandemic, which hit 101,024 patients.
While patients waiting for semi-urgent surgery made up nearly a fifth of the waitlist, up 25 per cent from the same time last year.
The number of elective surgeries performed on time was also down by 7.9 per cent, while patients booked in for semi-urgent surgery were waiting 65 days on average to go under, nine days more than they would have spent one year ago.
But patients with non-urgent surgeries are bearing the brunt of delays, with the majority waiting almost a year or 322 days for their operations, up 32 days from last March.
Across the board, the number of elective surgeries performed in public hospitals improved by 3.6 per cent, with roughly 52,900 operations completed between January to March.
For the first time, the report also included new Hospital Access Targets which aim to improve care by measuring the time between when a patient arrives and leaves the emergency department.
The median time from arrival to departure for all patients was three hours and 40 minutes, well under the new 12-hour target, while patients who were treated, admitted to hospital or transferred to another facility waited about eight hours and 11 minutes – two hours over the six-hour target.
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Originally published as Bureau of Health Information report on NSW public health service performance
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