Waiting times are down and more Wollongong Hospital emergency department patients are being treated on time than a year earlier, according to new health data.
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And, in a "remarkable improvement", the Illawarra's largest hospital is now outperforming the state and comparable hospitals when it comes to patients being transferred from ambulances into hospital staff care.
But the average patient is still waiting almost five hours from their arrival to leaving the ED, and bed block remains exacerbated by a shortage of aged care beds remains a problem for those waiting to be admitted.
Health Minister Ryan Park, who promised the Illawarra's overburdened health system would be a focus for him as he took on the job a year ago, said latest quarterly results from the Bureau of Health Information were promising but "far from mission accomplished".
From October to December, roughly three out of five patients were stuck in Wollongong ED for longer than the state benchmark of four hours.
The median time from arrival to leaving was four hours and 45 minutes for all patients, including those who gave up and left without treatment.
Patients who required a bed in hospital waited longer, spending a median waiting time of eight hours and seven minutes in the ED. This was a huge improvement on results from a year earlier when admitted patients were waiting an average of 11 hours and 23 minutes.
One in ten of admitted patients had to wait at least 23 hours and 35 minutes before leaving the ED in the latest quarter.
While these times are trending down, like waiting time across the state and at comparable hospitals, Wollongong patients still spent longer in the ED than average.
The BHI results also measure "on time" treatment, with Wollongong showing a marked improvement in this area and posting its best result since early 2022.
Just over 70 per cent of patients in Wollongong started treatment "on time", slightly better than the NSW average.
'Remarkable improvement' for ambulance arrivals
Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District Executive Director Clinical Operations Margaret Martin has praised a remarkable turnaround in the time it takes for patients arriving by ambulance to be transferred to the care of hospital staff.
She noted that the number of ambulance arrivals at emergency departments across the region was still high, with 12,532 patients representing the second highest result on record.
"Despite this increased demand, our ED staff achieved some remarkable improvements in the time for transfer of care from ambulance to hospital staff," Ms Martin said
"85.2 per cent of patients [were] transferred in 30 minutes, an improvement of 25.6 percentage points compared with the same quarter in 2022."
'Too many people are still waiting too long'
Health Minister Ryan Park said the progress in hospital results across the state was "modest but promising" with more room for improvement.
"Having people and their loved ones waiting around in our hospitals for lengthy periods of time is not good for them, our staff, or other patients," he said.
"I want to make it very clear - we are far from mission accomplished. While this is a promising improvement, too many people are still waiting too long in our EDs."
Mr Park said he was "throwing everything in our rucksack at improving access and reducing wait times in our hospitals".
"This includes boosting staff and infrastructure; but also rolling out urgent care and providing those alternate pathways to care, to treat people outside the hospital; and establishing an ED taskforce to drive improvements in wait times and access to care," he said.
"When we reduce the proportion of people who can be treated outside of hospitals entering our EDs, our patients as a whole benefit."
He said initiatives like the Illawarra's new urgent care centres and an aged care flying squad set up in July were starting to deliver promising results.
In less than three months, the Dapto Urgent Care Service treated over 2,500 patients, while the Aged Care Outreach Service (ACOS) team saw 1054 residents in its six months (to 3 January 2024).