Both Grafton and Maclean hospitals have continued to improve their emergency department performance despite record admissions according to the latest statistics for the Northern NSW Local Health District.
The Healthcare Quarterly report for October to December 2022 from the Bureau of Health Information shows there were a record 56,393 attendances to emergency departments across the Northern NSW Local Health District NNSWLHD, with Grafton and Maclean hospitals combined seeing more than 11,300 patients.
Grafton Base Hospital had a record 7,210 emergency department ED attendances during the quarter.
Of these patients, 65 per-cent started treatment on time and seven in 10 patients (70.8 per-cent) left the ED within four hours, which was above the average for comparable NSW hospitals of 60.9 per-cent.
Eight in 10 patients (87.9 per-cent) at Grafton Base Hospital were transferred from an ambulance to the ED within the 30-minute benchmark, above the state average for similar size hospitals of 85 per-cent.
The highest number of patients on record, 4,134 also attended Maclean District Hospital’s ED during the quarter.
Eight in 10 patients (83.2 per-cent) at Maclean District Hospital’s ED started their treatment on time, above the state average of 77.2 per-cent for hospitals of a similar size.
Maclean District Hospital saw 90.5 per-cent of patients leave the ED within four hours, above the NSW average for comparable hospitals of 79.2 per-cent.
Almost all patients (92.1 per-cent) taken to Maclean by ambulance were transferred to the ED within 30 minutes.
NNSWLHD acting chief executive Lynne Weir said the districts hospitals continued to perform well amid record activity.
“After the challenging years of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re beginning to see small, but important upwards trajectories in the second half of 2022 across the majority of indicators of hospital performance,” she said.
“This includes time to treatment, the percentage of patients leaving emergency departments within four hours, the time to transfer of care from ambulance to hospital staff, and the number of patients on the elective surgery waiting list at the end of the quarter.”
Ms Weir said further enhancements to procedures recently implemented were designed to increase efficiency.
“We have recently introduced a Patient Flow Unit, with the aim of further improving the transfer of patients throughout our hospitals, to make sure we’re providing patients with the right care in the right place, and also making the best use of our available resources across the District,” she said.
A total of 3,535 elective surgeries were performed across the region, with nearly all urgent elective surgery (97.4 per cent) performed on time.
“Additional elective surgery lists have also been scheduled at Ballina and Casino hospitals to increase the number of procedures we’re able to provide, and we are continuing our collaborative surgical care with private hospitals in the region,” Ms Weir said.