ACT Health quarterly report shows further decline in emergency department performance

Only 39.7 per cent of patients in the territory's emergency departments started treatment on time between April to June, the latest report card for ACT Health has shown.

This was down from 52.1 per cent in the previous three months.

More patients were also in the emergency department for longer, with only 45.6 per cent leaving within four hours of presentation. This was down from 53.3 per cent in the previous quarter.

The ACT government's aim in the annual report was for 90 per cent of patients to spend less than four hours in the department.

The results for emergency department performance were among the worst since the specific criteria has been measured by the health directorate.

Over the quarter the number of patients who presented at Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital Bruce emergency departments jumped by 8.1 per cent, with nearly 38,000 people turning up for treatment.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said this had contributed to the drop in performance.

"Combined with the pressures of COVID-19, other respiratory illness and related workforce absences, this resulted in a decrease in performance - as was the case around the country," she said.

Broken down into triage categories, the report showed only 28.5 per cent of patients who were deemed urgent were seen on time. Urgent patients were forced to wait an average of 72 minutes before they were seen.

Patients deemed semi-urgent waited, on average, for 99 minutes. Non-urgent patients waited 90 minutes.

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All patients requiring resuscitation were seen on time and 71.6 per cent of emergency patients were seen on time.

The report also showed the number of elective surgeries jumped by 20 per cent, with 3684 surgeries taking place over the three months.

This came after non-urgent elective surgeries were suspended at Calvary Public Hospital Bruce due to the summer Omicron COVID-19 wave.

Ms Stephen-Smith said performance was down across the system due to COVID-19.

"Like all health systems across the country, the ACT's hospitals and urgent care services were challenged [from April to June], with significant pressure due to the Omicron wave of COVID-19, an early and significant influenza season and the impacts of deferred care," she said.

"This affected performance across the system due to the availability of workforce and increased presentations to hospital."

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