Wait times in Canberra's emergency departments have improved but patients still wait longer in the territory than the national average.
The median waiting time in the ACT's emergency departments for 2022-23 was 36 minutes, this was down from 47 minutes in the previous year.
The national median was 20 minutes, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's latest report has shown.
The ACT did not have the worst wait times of the states and territories, unlike previous years, with Western Australia and Northern Territory both reporting longer waits of 41 minutes and 38 minutes, respectively.
NSW reported the shortest time at 15 minutes, followed by Queensland at 18 minutes and Victoria at 20 minutes.
These figures are based on the time within which 50 per cent of patients are seen and include the most urgent patients such as those who need immediate resuscitation.
When the 90th percentile is taken into consideration - this being the time within which 90 per cent of patients are seen - the wait time for the ACT was 191 minutes. The national median was 124 minutes.
Fifty-one per cent of all patients who presented to the ACT's emergency departments were seen in the clinically recommended time. This was up from 48 per cent in the previous year.
The national average was 65 per cent.
Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory all had a lower percentage of patients seen on time.
Canberra Hospital emergency department clinical director Sam Scanlan said the improvement in emergency department wait times did not reflect on the emergency department alone but rather it was an effort from the whole organisation.
He said the wait times were influenced by how well patients were able to be moved through the system. Dr Scanlan said about 25 per cent of patients who present to the department are subsequently admitted into hospital but he said these patients occupied about 60 per cent of the workload.
"They are more complex acute patients that take time to work through and so a lot of our improvement in the ED performance in wait times is because of the improvement that's gone into moving people through our system and into the hospital," he said.
Dr Scanlan said the establishment of the acute medical unit, which was designed to take pressure off the emergency department had also greatly helped. Patients from the emergency department who need acute care can be admitted to the unit where a team is able to assess the treatment or care needed.
Mental health patients were also moving through the system more effectively, Dr Scanlan said, and this had helped ease pressures on the department.
Dr Scanlan said changes in the emergency department included an increase in the capacity of the short-stay ward, the recruitment and retention of nurses and there had also been work to increase the paediatric skill set.
