WESTERN NSW was among three local health districts that took too long to treat patients who presented at hospitals with imminently life-threatening conditions such as serious chest pains, breathing difficulty or severe burns.
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It was among the findings of the NSW Auditor General's report to Parliament focusing on health agencies released this week.
Western NSW Local Health District (LHD) fell short of its T2 triage target of 80 per cent of patients treated within 10 minutes, achieving 78 per cent. It advised that in times of high activity, data collection processes had not been accurate. The LHD was working with nursing and medical staff to ensure data was collected in a more timely and accurate way, the report said.
Western NSW LHD was, however, one of only four LHDs that met the Australian government's 2014 target of 81 per cent of patients admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of presenting to the emergency department in 2013-2014.
When it came to bed occupancy rates and average lengths of hospital stay, Western NSW LHD was below the NSW Health average in both areas.
The report found, in general, health entities needed to reduce sick leave, annual leave and overtime payments and ensure visiting medical officers submitted claims for payment on time. This was especially the case with the NSW Ambulance Service, the report said, which needed to review rostering to find ways to reduce excessive overtime and call back payments and manage annual and sick.
One senior doctor in the Western NSW LHD was among the five employees paid the highest amount of overtime in NSW in 2013-2014, the report said.
The $191,995 in overtime paid to the doctor exceeded the doctor's annual base salary of $189,789.
The overtime figure included callbacks, which happened when a staff member was on call and was asked to come to work. Under the award, the staff members were paid for a minimum of four hours regardless of the time worked, the report said.
Overall there was $12.7 million paid in overtime for the Western NSW LHD in 2014, $2 million less than the previous year. This year there were 39 employees who worked more than 500 hours overtime, compared with 41 last year.
Meanwhile, at least one-in-four Western NSW LHD employees had accumulated "excessive annual leave". That figure was up from 19.2 per cent in 2013 to 25.6 per cent in 2014. While it fell short of the 40.2 per cent recorded for the South Western Sydney LHD, the report recommended across the board that health entities monitor employees who take no or very little leave in a rolling 12-month period.
The report also included a revised budget for the Dubbo Hospital Stage 1 and Stage 2 redevelopment that was $11.5 million higher than the original budget.
