NSW Health chalks up record quarter

NSW Health has recorded its busiest ever quarter for emergency department presentations, elective surgeries performed, ambulance responses and babies born – just as hospitals were being plunged into the first week of the current COVID-19 outbreak.

NSW Health Deputy Secretary of Patient Experience and System Performance, Wayne Jones said the figures – recorded from April to June – represented a period of recovery in the NSW Health system. 

“The April-June 2021 reporting period demonstrates the resilience of the NSW Health system and, in particular, our extraordinary staff,” Mr Jones said. 

“In this period, the system bounced back from the impacts of the first wave of COVID-19 and, in particular, the national halt of elective surgery in 2020.

“Through this period, our Emergency Departments were the busiest they have ever been, with a record 806,728 attendances to Emergency Departments at NSW public hospitals.”

The latest numbers represent an increase of 52,267 (6.9%) compared to the same quarter in 2019, before the pandemic began. 

In the quarter, 64,599 elective surgeries were performed – an increase of 5,330 (9.0%) compared to the same quarter in 2019 and the highest number ever recorded in the April-June quarter. 

“With the help of our private hospital partners, we also reduced the number of people on the elective surgery waiting list at the end of last quarter by over 15% (from 101,024 to 85,296),” said Mr Jones.

“We were able to catch up surgeries which were delayed last year and this has put us in a much better position with the current restriction on elective surgeries in NSW as we battle the current COVID-19 outbreak.”

Almost nine in 10 elective surgeries (89.3%) were performed on time this quarter. On-time performance for non-urgent surgery also improved to 84.3%, while almost all urgent surgeries (99.7%) continued to be performed on time.

The quarter also saw a large growth in the number of babies born, with a boom corresponding with the height of the pandemic in NSW in 2020. 

Between April and June 2021, 19,113 babies were born in NSW public hospitals, the highest number since BHI reporting began and representing a significant upswing compared with the declining birth rate over the last 10 years.