THE Bureau of Health Information (BHI) has released its latest “Healthcare Quarterly” report, showing activity and performance for public health services in NSW during October to December 2024.

NSW public hospital and ambulance services continued to experience significant demand during the quarter.

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Ambulance activity reached 391,370 responses – up 3.1 percent on the same time a year earlier and the highest since BHI began reporting in 2010.

Patients waited longer for an ambulance to arrive with the median response time for the highest priority 1A (P1A) cases 8.4 minutes (up from 8.2 minutes in 2023), and 14.1 minutes for emergency priority 1 (P1) cases (up from 13.2 minutes).

Demand for emergency departments (EDs) remained very high, with 802,697 attendances to NSW public hospital EDs in October to December 2024.

A record 196,617 of those patients arrived by ambulance.

Compared with the same quarter a year earlier, EDs continued to see more patients with the most urgent clinical conditions, while the number of patients in the least urgent triage category (5) dropped by 4.1 percent.

While just 65.3 percent of patients started their treatment on time, this was an improvement from the record low (61.4 percent) in the preceding quarter.

In October to December 2024, 67,902 patients left the ED without, or before completing, treatment – up 5.9 percent (3,810) compared with the same quarter a year earlier and up 32 percent since 2019, outpacing growth in overall ED attendances.

BHI Chief Executive Dr Diane Watson said BHI had conducted special analysis to understand more about this group of patients.

“The latest analysis shows that patients with less urgent conditions and patients aged 15–44 years were more likely to leave without, or before completing, treatment. Patients who left were most likely to do so on Mondays – the busiest day of the week – and across the week between 8pm and 4am,” Dr Watson said.

Regardless of the time of day they arrived in the ED, the overall time spent in the ED for patients who left without, or before completing, treatment was between two and two-and-a-half hours – although one in 10 patients waited more than six hours in the ED before eventually leaving without completing treatment.

“Previous BHI analyses show that around one in five patients who leave without, or before completing, treatment tend to return to the same or a different ED within three days, contributing to further demand on NSW public hospitals,” Dr Watson said.

Healthcare Quarterly also shows that in October to December 2024, there were 54,966 elective surgeries performed.

At the end of December, there were 100,235 patients on the elective surgery waiting list – up 13.1 percent from the same quarter a year earlier and close to the record peak reached during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of those patients on the list waiting for surgery, 6,842 had waited longer than clinically recommended – up 220.8 percent (from 2,133) from the same time in 2023.

Responding to the data release, the Australian Paramedics Association (NSW) said that without “smart solutions”, things will continue to get worse.

“The Government loves to complain about the cost of healthcare but refuses to invest in community-based solutions that provide patients early access to the care they need, keeping them out of the back of ambulances and out of hospitals,” Association President Brett Simpson said.

“At a time when expansion and development of NSW Ambulance programs that keep people out of the hospital and at home, like the Virtual Clinical Care Centre and Extended Care Paramedics, NSW Ambulance is mismanaging and gutting these programs,” Mr Simpson added.

Shadow Minister for Regional Health Gurmesh Singh said the Minns Government wasn’t prioritising health services in regional NSW.

“Chris Minns is busy fighting healthcare workers when he should be focused on delivering better health services for regional NSW,” said Mr Singh.

“The latest data shows that the time it takes for an ambulance to reach the highest priority P1A cases is continuing to go backwards, with only 52.4 percent arriving in 10 minutes in rural areas compared with 67 percent in urban areas.”

NSW Minister for Health Ryan Park celebrated that some of the busiest emergency departments in Australia have seen “significant reductions in hospital ramping”, including St George, Blacktown, Liverpool and Campbelltown hospitals.

“Relieving pressure on our emergency departments and ensuring people receive care in a timely manner have been top priorities of our government,” Minister Park said.

“Such significant challenges have been met with a significant half-a-billion dollar investment in ED relief.

“Today, I’m so pleased to see encouraging progress in our effort to reduce ramping.

“But I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves, because there is still much more to do.

“I do want to reiterate that people who present to hospitals with non-life-threatening conditions can still expect to wait long periods in the ED.”