The Hodgman majority Liberal Government is committed to building a better health system for Tasmanians.
This is underpinned by an unprecedented $8.1 billion investment into health over four years.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has today released its updated emergency department data on the MyHospitals website.
The report shows information on waiting times and lengths of stay in public hospital emergency departments.
The national report notes Tasmanian emergency department presentations rose by 2.2 per cent to 165,994 compared to the previous year.
It also indicates Tasmanian emergency departments are close to the national average in length of stay and four-hour departure times for people not needing hospital admission.
It’s not just the overall number of patients, there is an increasing complexity of chronic illness that require care which is putting pressure on our ED’s.
In Tasmania, 32 per cent of people presenting to emergency departments were subsequently admitted, which is above the national average of 31 per cent.
However, too many emergency department presentations who need hospital admission are waiting longer than necessary for a bed to become available due to bed block.
We are have already implemented actions and continue to rollout other strategies from the Access Solutions Meeting. These are long term challenges, and we need to make sure our hospitals are operating as effectively as possible.
Since this data was collected, we have commenced the Community Rapid Response in Hobart which has already delivered more than 350 occasions of service and is easing pressure on the Royal Hobart Hospital ED.
From next year we will open an additional 44 beds at the RHH’s new state-of-the-art redevelopment, a project that will provide world class facilities to support our clinicians to provide even better care.
There are now 44 per cent more doctors and 39 per cent more nurses at the RHH Emergency Department since we came to Government five years ago but we know there is plenty more to do to ensure more patients can get the care they need.
Visit www.aihw.gov.au/ to see the full report.