Figures released by the Bureau of Health Information for the September quarter show the median waiting time for seriously ill patients - known as triage two - remains at nine minutes, just shy of the NSW average, eight minutes.

The wait for urgent elective surgery at Wollongong is nine days, level with the state median.

Waits for urgent surgery at Shellharbour Hospital are the worst in the state, at 21 days.

For Wollongong, the emergency department statistics compare well with those recorded in the same three months last year.

Then, the triage two figure was 11 minutes.

Gains in the three other triage categories have been significant, but are still between six and 11 minutes slower than the state median.

As well, of the 14,928 people who sought treatment from the Wollongong emergency department during the September quarter, only 53 per cent left within four hours of arriving. This was a significant improvement on the 41 per cent figure of last year but well short of the statewide target, linked to federal funding, of 71 per cent.

At Shellharbour (6742 patients) the rate was 55 per cent and at Bulli (1735) it was 98 per cent.