The number of emergency patients seen on time in the ACT fell to 73 per cent, with the high level of emergency care delivered to the most disadvantaged patients falling faster.
The latest report on government services issued by the Productivity Commission revealed much of what was already known about the ACT's hospital system, in that those patients who needed life-saving resuscitation and emergency treatment were far better off than those needing urgent or semi-urgent care.
However, the most troubling data was the decline in timeliness of emergency treatment in 2021-22 for those patients seen as most disadvantaged or in the so-called "quintile 1" of the population. These emergency patients were seen on time 76 per cent of the time, compared with 85 per cent in the previous 2020-21 reporting year.
The ACT's overall score on timeliness of emergency department treatment was 48 per cent against the national average of 64 per cent.
The length of stay by patients presenting at Canberra's emergency departments was the longest in the country. Providing four hours' stay in the ED as the baseline target in the dataset, Canberra's emergency departments only achieved the goal 52.4 per cent of the time, compared with a national average of 60.9 per cent.
The report revealed that the ACT had 143,693 emergency presentations in 2021-22 - including at its women's and children's hospital - down more than 10,000 on the previous year. The average cost per presentations of $550, cheaper than the national average of $611.
After admission, patient presentation cost rose to $1188, which was much closer to the national average of $1144.
The commission report revealed recurrent expenditure on salaries and wages at Canberra's public hospitals was $992 million in 2021-22, up by $13 million.
Comparing hospital staff numbers by population across the jurisdictions, the ACT reported much higher rates of clerical and administrative staff than anywhere else, and its number of salaried medical officers and nursing numbers were proportionately higher than anywhere bar the Northern Territory.
Recurrent expenditure per patient was $3973, the second highest in the country behind the Northern Territory.
Many of the ACT waiting times for specific elective surgery types were not provided to the commission but overall, 36.5 per cent of ACT patients deemed as in clinical category one were admitted after 30 days, below the national average of 51.8 per cent.
The pressure on Canberra's ED nursing staff was revealed in the patient experience survey, in which 74.5 per cent were seen as always, or often, spending enough time with patients compared with the national average of 83.9 per cent.
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