Territory emergency department presentations top 100,000

EMERGENCY department presentations grew by 5 per cent to more than 100,000 visits last financial year, the Health Department has revealed.

A department spokeswom- an said the rise presented a challenge for hospital staff as the number of free ward beds dwindled.

“While the hospitals continue to perform well for those ED patients who are not admitted to the hospital (80 to 85 per cent are discharged within four hours), ‘bed block’, i.e. ward beds being available in the hospital, is the challenge,” the spokeswoman said.

“Strategies the health services are implementing to address bed block include the establishment of short-stay units and improving patient flow through the hospital, e.g. improved discharge planning, creating transit lounge.”

A report card released by the AMA showed 20 per cent of Territorians waited 243 days for elective surgery, but the department spokeswoman described the reasons for this as “complex”.

“The most common reason is that the patient does not attend the hospital for their surgery – in the NT, the ‘do not attend’ is approximately 15 per cent across all elective surgery,” she said.

“The health services are implementing strategies to minimise the number of people who do not attend hospital for their elective surgery.”