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Fact Sheet - The state of our public hospitals, June 2007 - Australian Capital Territory

Snapshot of our public hospitals in the ACT during 2005-06.

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Overview

• In 2005–06, the Australian Capital Territory had three public hospitals.
• The number of public hospital beds, per 1,000 weighted population, fell to 2.3 in 2005–06 from 2.7 in 1998–99. The Australian Capital Territory was below the national figure in 2005–06.
• In 2005–06 the Australian Capital Territory ranked third for the amount of public hospital recurrent expenditure per person in the country ($865, an increase of 20 per cent in real terms from 1998–99).

The following table shows how the Australian Capital Territory compared to other jurisdictions across key performance measures:

Performance measure	Ranked
Public hospital beds – number per 1,000 weighted population	7th
Public hospitals – proportion accredited	1st
Public hospital recurrent expenditure per person, weighted population	3rd
Public patient admissions in all hospitals – number per 1,000 weighted population	4th
Elective surgery – percentage of people seen within the recommended time	7th
Elective surgery – percentage of admissions that waited longer than one year	8th
Elective surgery – median waiting time	8th
Emergency department – percentage seen within the recommended time	8th
Emergency department – median waiting time	8th

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Admissions

The number of public hospital admissions, per 1,000 weighted population, in the Australian Capital Territory increased from 219 in 1998–99 to 235 in 2005–06.

Public hospitals	2005-06		1998-99
	Australian Capital Territory	Australian Total	Australian Capital Territory	Australian Total
Admissions per 1,000 weighted population	529	210	219	207

• The Australian Capital Territory’s public hospitals admitted 72,136 patients. Of these, 88 per cent were public patients.
• The proportion of public patient admissions in all the Australian Capital Territory’s hospitals (including private hospitals) was 60 per cent.
• The average length of stay for overnight patients in the Australian Capital Territory’s public hospitals in 2005–06 was 6.3 days, down from 6.4 days in 1998–99.The length of stay is below the national figure.

Elective Surgery

• In 2005–06, more than 9,000 patients underwent some form of elective surgery procedure as public patients in the Australian Capital Territory.
• Overall, 70 per cent of public elective surgery patients in 2005–06 were seen within the recommended time.
• The median waiting time for elective surgery in the state was 61 days, 29 days longer than the national median waiting time.

Elective surgery	2005-06		1998-99
	Australian Capital Territory (%)	Australian Total	Australian Capital Territory (%)	Australian Total
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	70	81	73	90
Category 1: within 30 days	96	83	83	91
Category 2: within 90 days	52	74	61	86
Category 3: within 12 months	73	88	89	93

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Emergency Departments

• In 2005–06, there were about 99,000 emergency presentations to larger public hospital emergency departments in the Australian Capital Territory.
• Of those, around 52 per cent were treated within the clinically appropriate period, which is below the national average of 69 per cent.
• The median waiting time to be seen was 46 minutes, 22 minutes longer than the national median.

The following table shows how the Australian Capital Territory performed in 2005–06 across the five emergency department triage categories:

Emergency departments	Australian Capital Territory (%)		National
Triage Category 1: Need for resuscitation	100		99
Triage Category 2: Emergency	71		77
Triage Category 3: Urgent	44		64
Triage Category 4: Semi–urgent	47		65
Triage Category 5: Non–urgent	84		87