Health data shows 'sustained demand' for emergency care at Port Macquarie Base Hospital

And the data shows Port Macquarie Base Hospital is the busiest of them all.

It recorded 12,342 attendances to ED between January and March 2023. That's more than 1000 people a week.

The figures are up 330 attendances (2.7 per cent) from the same period last year, but are down by 348 on the last quarterly results of 2022 (October to December).

Coffs Harbour is the second busiest hospital, with 11,292 attendances to ED in the first quarter of this year.

Port Macquarie Base Hospital is also the ninth busiest in its peer group, which are hospitals grouped together of a similar size.

The data also shows that 2675 of patients who attended Port Macquarie's ED did so via ambulance. This is an increase of 60 arrivals (2.3 per cent) compared with the same quarter from last year.

The percentage of patients leaving ED within four hours is 68.2 per cent, which is down five per cent from the same time the previous year.

This means just over 31 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).

Of those patients attending ED across the health district, 69.4 per cent left within four hours. That's down 2.5 per cent on the same quarter last year but is still better than the state average of 58.2 per cent.

Across the state, the 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 PMBH, the data shows 77.4 per cent of patients were transferred from paramedics to ED staff within 30 minutes. This is down 4.8 percent from the same period last year.

Compared to other hospitals in the health district, PMBH has the lowest percentage of patients being 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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