For the first three months of 2017 (January-March), 1012 non-urgent patients (including those with small cuts and abrasions) presented, compared to just 562 in the same quarter of 2016.

Overall emergency presentations rose 7.3 per cent to 8178 in January-March 2017. Hospital general manager Debbie Bickerton said the full 12-month increase was 11 per cent, with about 90 per cent of the additional presentations from Dubbo patients.

”We found there was a significant increase in the 0-5 year olds, the other increase was adults who had cardiac and respiratory illnesses,” Ms Bickerton said.

“What we’ve surmised … is that the increase in 0-5 year olds is contributed to by the lack of access to GPs, because with kids you don’t book them an appointment two weeks in advance, you often need to get in straight away.

“It’s not that we don’t want them bringing kids to hospital, but we need people to leave emergency for emergencies.”

She said a shortage of GPs in Dubbo “definitely” had an impact on the overall trend, despite the fact a number of vacancies had been filled in the first quarter of 2017.

For older patients, Ms Bickerton said the increase in presentations was due to long specialist waiting times.

“We need to improve the access to that outpatient care in the cardiac and respiratory specialties,” she said.

“We’ve got a second respiratory position started about six weeks ago and we’ve got another cardiologist starting near the end of the year.”

Despite the rise in patient numbers, waiting times remained relatively stable.

The median waiting times for emergency (such as chest pain or severe burns) and urgent (including moderate blood loss and dehydration) cases remained at nine and 24 minutes respectively.

The median wait time for semi-urgent patients (sprained ankle, earache) remained 28 minutes.

Non-urgent patients waited longer, with the median time rising from 23 minutes in January-March 2016 to 28 minutes in January-March 2017.