The latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report shows Western NSW Local Health District (WNSWLHD) improved in a number of key planned surgery and emergency department (ED) performance measures despite increasingly high demand for hospital care.
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Mark Spittal, WNSWLHD Chief Executive, has thanked staff for their commitment and dedication to delivering high-quality care to communities throughout another busy period in July to September 2023.
"This report shows our District has improved across a range of key performance measures when compared to the same quarter of 2022, including time to start ED treatment and the number of planned surgeries performed on time," Mr Spittal said.
"These results are testament to the hard work of our healthcare workers. I am incredibly grateful for their commitment and want to thank all of our dedicated staff who continue to perform exceptionally in these challenging and busy times."
Throughout the third quarter of 2023, there were 52,368 attendances to the District's EDs, which was an increase of 2,053 attendances when compared to the same quarter of 2022.
There were 2,152 attendances at the Cowra Health Service's ED during the quarter.
Across the district more than 30,000 presentations were in the semi-urgent (triage four) and non-urgent (triage five) categories, with a 13.4 per cent increase in non-urgent presentations compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
More than eight in 10 patients (81.3 per cent) started their treatment on time, which was significantly better than the state average. Additionally, the number of patients starting treatment on time was significantly higher than the NSW average in all triage categories.
Pleasingly, the majority of patients (80.6 per cent) were transferred from paramedics to ED staff within the 30-minute benchmark, which was also better than the state average (77 per cent).
At Cowra more than nine in 10 patients (91.9 per cent) started treatment on time, which was better than the same quarter of the previous year and the average for hospitals of a similar size in NSW.
Cowra Health Service performed 182 planned surgeries during the quarter, an increase of 46.8 per cent compared with the same time last year.
The majority of planned surgeries at Cowra (92.6 per cent), and all urgent planned surgeries were performed on time.
Across the district 868 babies were born, 33 of them at Cowra Health Service.
