Fears Canberra Hospital emergency department nurses were working in a system which forced them to breach their professional obligations – a claim disputed by ACT Health – were raised publicly in July.

Australian Nursery and Midwifery Federation ACT secretary Jenny Miragaya said nurses, aided by better-staffed rosters, were now having greater opportunity to re-assess emergency department patients within the two streams they were placed in after the initial triage process.

"So if someone becomes more ill they might be bumped up," she said.

"I am assured that should the nurses have concerns with regard to that, they can re-triage or bring that to attention."

There had been nothing in writing from the hospital to confirm the shift, she said.

Patients entering the emergency department are assessed and given a category of one (emergency) to five (non-urgent).

Category three to five patients – who make up about 90 per cent of ED presentations – are then divided into a stream, one for those likely to be admitted to hospital and the other for those with less acute conditions, an ACT Health spokesman said in July.

The result remains that someone defined as category five can be treated before someone in a higher category, something Ms Miragaya acknowledged allowed hospital staff greater time to then treat the more serious patients.

"But my members were feeling that people were seen on time of arrival not on complexity of needs," she said.

Figures released this week showed ACT public hospital ED waiting times remained the worst in the nation overall.

An ACT Health spokesman there has been no change to the triage and screening process used in the Canberra Hospital Emergency Department since July, and the streaming procedure was similar to those in other Australian hospitals.
"Highly trained medical and nursing clinicians make the decisions on how, where and when patients are seen in the department," he said.
"The key focus for ACT Health is to provide the safest and best quality care for every patient, every time."