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Quarterly results from the NSW Bureau of Health Information today highlight the critical condition of the state’s health system and the desperate need for an injection of health dollars.
AMA (NSW) President Dr Michael Bonning said today “These figures should be a wakeup call for the NSW government. The health system is crumbling under unprecedented demand, while staff try to manage after funding cuts delivered in the Minns government first budget.”
“The September budget delivered a measly 0.87% increase, which after being swallowed by health inflation, estimated at 8%, is a 7% budget cut.”
“We are calling on the Minns government to commit to a substantial increase in health funding in the upcoming budget, as outlined in our pre-budget submission.” Dr Bonning said.
“Our drastically overburdened health workforce cannot continue to perform under the current conditions. Without an urgent injection of health dollars, it is patients who will suffer as they wait longer in the Emergency Department and are forced to endure longer stays in hospital.”
The BHI quarterly figures, taking in the period from 1 October – 31 December 2023, show record demand on a broken system.
- Ambulance activity was higher than any quarter since the BHI began reporting in 2010 at 379,705 responses including a record 14,741 “highest priority – P1A” responses for patients with a life-threatening condition, up a staggering 34.8% (3,804) from the same quarter the previous year.
- There were 798,813 ED attendances, up from 790,309 in the same period last year, and up 2.9% on pre-pandemic levels.
- EDs continued to see more of the most urgent patients with 6,649 triage 1 presentations and 119,389 triage 2 presentations – both the highest of any quarter since BHI started reporting in 2010.
- While 58.1% of patients spent less than four hours in the ED, a slight improvement on the record low in the preceding quarter, one in 10 patients spent longer than 10 hours 30 minutes in the ED – well above pre-pandemic levels.
- There were 497, 870 admitted patient episodes – up 4.6% (21,838) from the same quarter the previous year.
- There were 230,643 acute same day patient episodes – the largest increase (5.9%) in type of care compared to pre-pandemic levels.
- The average length of stay for overnight non-acute episodes was 16.7 days, 12.8% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
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