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Fact Sheet - The state of our public hospitals, June 2007 - New South Wales

Snapshot of our public hospitals in NSW during 2005-06.

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Overview

• In 2005–06, New South Wales had 230 public hospitals.
• The number of public hospital beds, per 1,000 weighted population, fell to 2.7 in 2005–06 from 2.9 in 1998–99. New South Wales was above the national figure in 2005–06.
• In 2005–06 New South Wales ranked fifth for the amount of public hospital recurrent expenditure per person in the country ($669, an increase of 23 per cent in real terms from 1998–99).

The following table shows how New South Wales compared to other states and territories across key performance measures:

Performance measure	Ranked
Public hospital beds – number per 1,000 weighted population	3rd
Public hospitals – proportion accredited	7th
Public hospital recurrent expenditure per person, weighted population	5th
Public patient admissions in all hospitals – number per 1,000 weighted population	7th
Elective surgery – percentage of people seen within the recommended time	5st
Elective surgery – percentage of admissions that waited longer than one year	5st
Elective surgery – median waiting time	6st
Emergency department – percentage seen within the recommended time	3rd
Emergency department – median waiting time	3rd

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Admissions

The number of public hospital admissions, per 1,000 weighted population, in New South Wales decreased from 198 in 1998–99 to 197 in 2005–06.

Public hospitals	2005-06		1998-99
	New South Wales	Australian Total	New South Wales	Australian Total
Admissions per 1,000 weighted population	197	210	198	207

• New South Wales’s public hospitals admitted 1,420,461 patients. Of these, 82 per cent were public patients.
• The proportion of public patient admissions in all New South Wales’ hospitals (including private hospitals) was 54 per cent.
• The average length of stay for overnight patients in New South Wales’ public hospitals in 2005–06 was 6.7 days, down from 7.1 days in 1998–99. The length of stay was just above the national figure.

Elective Surgery

• In 2005–06, more than 201,400 patients underwent some form of elective surgery procedure as public patients in New South Wales.
• Overall, 78 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 36 days, four days longer than the national median waiting time.

Elective surgery	2005-06		1998-99
	New South Wales (%)	Australian Total (%)	New South Wales (%)	Australian Total (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	78	81	90	90
Category 1: within 30 days	77	83	89	91
Category 2: within 90 days	70	74	85	86
Category 3: within 12 months	85	88	94	93

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Emergency Departments

• In 2005–06, there were more than 1,672,000 emergency presentations to larger public hospital emergency departments in New South Wales.
• Of those, around 69 per cent were treated within the clinically appropriate period, which is the same as the national figure.
• The median waiting time to be seen was 25 minutes, one minute longer than the national median.

The following table shows how New South Wales performed in 2005–06 across the five emergency department triage categories:

Emergency departments	2005-06	1998-99
	New South Wales (%)	National (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	69	69
Triage Category 1: Need for resuscitation	100	99
Triage Category 2: Emergency	81	77
Triage Category 3: Urgent	61	64
Triage Category 4: Semi–urgent	66	65
Triage Category 5: Non–urgent	87	87