Hospital wait times have plummeted in the ACT, but only after a drop in the number of patients attending emergency due to the impact of COVID-19.
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The latest quarterly data from ACT Health revealed 57 per cent of urgent patients were seen on time between April and June this year at the height of the pandemic, compared with just 30 per cent the previous quarter.
A sharp increase was also recorded for semi-urgent patients seen on time, up from 48 per cent to 77 per cent.
The report found 70 per cent of all patients received treatment inside the recommended time for their triage category.
While the median wait time for emergency patients - the highest triage category - remained the same, there were dramatic drops for wait times for urgent patients, falling from 60 minutes to 25 minutes, while semi-urgent wait times fell from 64 to 29 minutes.
Calvary Hospital fared slightly better than Canberra Hospital when it came to seeing patients on time.
Almost 63 per cent of urgent patients were seen within the clinical guidelines of less than 30 minutes, compared to 53 per cent of urgent patients at Canberra Hospital.
Despite the figures showing improving patient outcomes after Canberra's emergency performance hit record lows, the new figures coincided with a sharp decline in patient numbers as people stayed away from hospitals due to coronavirus.
There was a 17.7 per cent drop in emergency admissions in the April to June quarter with 6331 fewer patients compared to the previous quarter.
Patients in the highest triage category - those requiring resuscitation - dropped by 16 per cent, while non-urgent patients at the other end of the spectrum fell by more than 20 per cent.
The number of walk-in centre admissions also fell heavily during the reporting period.
There was a 56 per cent decline in overall presentations, a drop of more than 12,000 patients to the ACT's four walk-in centres.
However, one of those walk-in centres at Weston Creek had only been used for COVID-19 testing during that time.
"Of most significance has been the impact of COVID-19, which the ACT health system moved swiftly to address," the report said.
"In keeping with the decisions of National Cabinet, the ACT suspended all non-essential elective surgery in late March and elective surgery activity returned to normal levels from June.
"Many areas of the public health system have adapted their operations as needed."
Overall levels of elective surgery carried out at ACT hospitals fell by 20 per cent during the quarter.
Until the resumption of all elective surgery in June, only category one and urgent category two surgeries were undertaken.
Just 2448 elective surgeries were done in hospitals between April and June, down from more than 3000 in the previous reporting period.