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

Snapshot of our public hospitals in South Australia-wide during 2005-06.

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Overview

• In 2005–06, South Australia had 79 public hospitals.
• The number of public hospital beds, per 1,000 weighted population, fell to 2.8 in 2005–06 from 3.2 in 1998-99. South Australia was above the national figure in 2005–06.
• In 2005–06 South Australia ranked seventh for the amount of public hospital recurrent expenditure per person in the country ($597, an increase of 33 per cent in real terms from 1998–99).

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

Performance measure	Ranked
Public hospital beds – number per 1,000 weighted population	2nd
Public hospitals – proportion accredited	4th
Public hospital recurrent expenditure per person, weighted population	7th
Public patient admissions in all hospitals – number per 1,000 weighted population	5th
Elective surgery – percentage of people seen within the recommended time	3rd
Elective surgery – percentage of admissions that waited longer than one year	2nd
Elective surgery – median waiting time	7th
Emergency department – percentage seen within the recommended time	4th
Emergency department – median waiting time	4th

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Admissions

The number of public hospital admissions, per 1,000 weighted population, in South Australia decreased from 226 in 1998–99 to 220 in 2005–06.

Public hospitals	2005-06		1998-99
	South Australia	Australian Total	South Australia	Australian Total
Admissions per 1,000 weighted population	220	210	226	207

• South Australia’s public hospitals admitted 377,667 patients. Of these, 87 per cent were public patients.
• The proportion of public patient admissions in all South Australia’s hospitals (including private hospitals) was 55 per cent.
• The average length of stay for overnight patients in South Australia’s public hospitals in 2005–06 was 7.2 days, up from 6.6 days in 1998–99. The length of stay is above the national figure.

Elective Surgery

• In 2005–06, more than 35,900 patients underwent some form of elective surgery procedure as public patients in South Australia.
• Overall, 82 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 38 days, six days longer than the national median waiting time.

Elective surgery	2005-06		1998-99
	South Australia (%)	Australian Total (%)	South Australia (%)	Australian Total (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	82	81	94	90
Category 1: within 30 days	77	83	90	91
Category 2: within 90 days	77	74	89	86
Category 3: within 12 months	90	88	98	93

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Emergency Departments

• In 2005–06, there were more than 329,000 emergency presentations to larger public hospital emergency departments in South Australia.
• Of those, around 62 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 27 minutes, three minutes longer than the national median.

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

Emergency departments	2005-06	1998-99
	South Australia (%)	National (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	62	69
Triage Category 1: Need for resuscitation	99	99
Triage Category 2: Emergency	69	77
Triage Category 3: Urgent	56	64
Triage Category 4: Semi–urgent	62	65
Triage Category 5: Non–urgent	85	87