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

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

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Overview

• In 2005–06, the Northern Territory had five public hospitals.
• The number of public hospital beds, per 1,000 weighted population, fell to 3.6 in 2005–06 from 4.2 in 1998–99. The Northern Territory was above the national figure in 2005–06.
• In 2005–06 the Northern Territory ranked highest for the amount of public hospital recurrent expenditure per person in the country ($1,407, an increase of 43 per cent in real terms from 1998–99).

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

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

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Admissions

The number of public hospital admissions, per 1,000 weighted population, in the Northern Territory increased from 402 in 1998–99 to 529 in 2005–06.

Public hospitals	2005-06		1998-99
	Northern Territory	Australian Total	Northern Territory	Australian Total
Admissions per 1,000 weighted population	529	210	402	207

• The Northern Territory’s public hospitals admitted 83,385 patients. Of these, 97 per cent were public patients.
• The proportion of public patient admissions in all the Northern Territory’s hospitals (including private hospitals) was 84 per cent.
• The average length of stay for overnight patients in the Northern Territory’s public hospitals in 2005–06 was 5.8 days, down from 6.0 days in 1998–99. The length of stay is below the national figure.

Elective Surgery

• In 2005–06, more than 5,600 patients underwent some form of elective surgery procedure as public patients in the Northern Territory.
• Overall, 73 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 30 days, two days shorter than the national median waiting time.

Elective surgery	2005-06		1998-99
	Northern Territory (%)	Australian Total (%)	Northern Territory (%)	Australian Total (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	73	81	90	90
Category 1: within 30 days	81	83	89	91
Category 2: within 90 days	61	74	86	86
Category 3: within 12 months	70	88	97	93

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Emergency Departments

• In 2005–06, there were more than 111,000 emergency presentations to larger public hospital emergency departments in the Northern Territory.
• Of those, around 60 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 35 minutes, 11 minutes longer than the national median.

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

Emergency departments	2005-06	1998-99
	Northern Territory (%)	National (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	60	69
Triage Category 1: Need for resuscitation	100	99
Triage Category 2: Emergency	59	77
Triage Category 3: Urgent	59	64
Triage Category 4: Semi–urgent	53	65
Triage Category 5: Non–urgent	87	87