Increase in ED attendances at Kempsey District Hospital shows demand for emergency care

The Bureau of Health Information (BHI) results for the first quarter of 2023 show Mid North Coast Health District (MNCLHD) hospitals are dealing with a high number of attendances to ED.

Kempsey District Hospital had 6661 attendances to ED between January and March 2023.

These figures are up 318 attendances (5 per cent) from the same period last year.

However, these figures are down 71 attendances from the last quarterly results from 2022 (October to December).

According to the data, Kempsey District Hospital is the busiest in its peer group, which are hospitals grouped together of a similar size and has the third busiest ED in the MNCLHD.

The data also shows that 944 of the patients who attended Kempsey's ED did so via ambulance. This is and increase of 29 arrivals (3.2 per cent) compared with the same quarter from last year.

The percentage of patients leaving ED within four hours is 78.1 per cent, which is down 1.2 per cent from the same time the previous year.

This means almost 22 per cent of patients are waiting longer than four hours in ED.

Overall there were 35,202 attendances at MNCLHD EDs throughout the first quarter of 2023, which is an increase of 6.3 per cent (2100 attendances).

69.4 per cent of patients attending ED across the health district left ED within four hours, which is down 2.5 per cent when compared with the same quarter the previous year.

However, it is above the NSW average of 58.2 per cent.

Across the state, the new data shows a record demand for NSW ambulance and emergency departments.

In NSW there were 347,720 ambulance responses for the first quarter of this year - the highest of any quarter since BHI began reporting in 2010.

MNCLHD Chief Executive Stewart Dowrick said the data shows hospitals across the district continue to improve emergency department performance throughout the first quarter of this year.

"We've seen sustained demand for emergency care and also a slight increase in admitted patient activity in the past year," he said.

"It's pleasing to see that our District is above the state average in a number of key performance markers - in particular our ambulance transfer of care times, which are among the best in the state for this quarter."

For Kempsey District Hospital, the data shows 94.1 per cent of patients were transferred from paramedics to ED staff within 30 minutes. This is up 0.8 per cent from the same period last year.

Compared to other hospitals in the health district, Kempsey District Hospital has the second highest percentage of patients eing transferred from an ambulance to ED within the 30-minute time frame.

MNCLHD continues to remind the community to keep emergency departments and ambulances for saving lives and consider alternative options for minor conditions such as medical centres or GPs or calling the 24-hour telephone health advice HealthDirect.

Throughout the first quarter of 2023, there were 2551 planned surgery procedures, with almost all urgent planned procedures (98.7 per cent) performed on time.

"We continue to work hard to ensure those procedures that were delayed due to the unprecedented challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic are performed as quickly as possible," Mr Dowrick said.

"Any patients who feel their condition has deteriorated while waiting for their procedure are encouraged to contact their treating doctor for a clinical review and they can be placed in a higher urgency category if required."

Mr Dowrick thanked staff for their efforts in providing outstanding care to patients throughout another busy period.

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