Published Thursday, 06 November, 2008 at 04:05 PM
Minister for Health
The Honourable Stephen Robertson
Townsville Hospital – Up There With The Best
A strong increase in the number of elective surgery procedures has been recorded at Townsville Hospital in the last three months, according to the latest Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report.
The report for the September quarter 2008 shows Townsville Hospital treated 1,904 patients from the elective surgery waiting list - an increase of almost 17% on the same period last year.
The number of people waiting for their elective surgery procedure decreased by 19% and, most importantly, the number of patients waiting longer than clinically desirable for their elective surgery declined from 467 to 148, a massive 68% decrease compared to the same quarter last year.
Townsville now has the second shortest long wait elective surgery list of Queensland’s 10 major hospitals.
Health Minister Stephen Robertson said these record numbers of elective surgery procedures were testament to the hard work of Queensland Health staff in Townsville and evidence of the positive impact the Bligh Government’s Health Action Plan was making to improving access to essential health services.
“Our $10 billion Health Action plan is steadily transforming health services in Queensland, and there’s no better proof of this than the amount of elective surgery being performed at Townsville Hospital,” he said.
“This increase is part of a trend across the State, which has seen a record number of elective surgery procedures performed in Queensland public hospitals in the last three months.”
“Importantly, no Category 1 patients waited longer than the recommended 30 days for surgery, matching the June quarter figures and improving on the same figures from this time last year,” he said.
“In the September quarter, 90 per cent of Category 2 patients received their surgery within the recommended 90 days.”
Mr Robertson said the report also showed 56,753 specialist outpatient appointments were conducted over the September quarter, an increase of 7% compared to the same quarter last year.
The number of inpatients treated at Townsville Hospital also rose 4% per cent, although emergency department attendances fell over the past three months.
Compared to the September quarter 2007, Townsville’s emergency department experienced a 7.5% reduction in ED attendances over the months of July, August, September.
Mr Robertson said just over 14,800 people presented to the hospital’s emergency department in the last three months, compared to 16,000 over the same period in 2007.
It is clear that reports of clinical staff illness in the emergency department had contributed to the pressures witnessed at Townsville in September this year.
“However this decline will not cause us to revisit the acceleration of the expansion of Townsville’s emergency department.
“We will continue with the $16 million ED expansion which have already delivered an extra eight emergency beds as ED presentations had still increased by 3.5% over the same quarter two years ago.”
“Queensland Health has also put in place a comprehensive access block strategy to cope with pressures in emergency departments throughout Queensland.
“With hospital admissions state-wide increasing by more than double population growth, I have endorsed the *eight point, ‘Whole-of-Hospital Plan’ developed by Senior Emergency Clinicians to reduce access block across our major public hospitals to reduce emergency department and admission waiting times even further.
“I have nothing but praise for our dedicated staff and I thank them all for their hard work.
A complete version of the Queensland Public Hospitals Quarterly Performance Report (September 08 quarter) will be available in the ‘What's New’ section of the Queensland Health website at http://www.health.qld.gov.au/
Ends.
MEDIA: Kate Van Poelgeest 3234 1185 or Martin Philip 3235 2680
* The eight points are:
• Implementing robust internal processes to improve bed availability.
• Ensuring timely and appropriate discharge protocols are in place with executive directors of Medical Services and Nursing directly involved in managing this.
• Enabling key staff to have input into developing strategies to reduce pressure on emergency departments.
• Introducing into performance contracts for District CEOs personal accountabilities for managing organisational issues impacting access block.
• Focussing on whole of hospital performance indicators for access block.
• Developing and implementing predictive software to enhance bed management.
• Working with the Divisions of General Practice to enhance access to GP and other community-based services.
• Creating a senior position within Queensland Health to bring an organisation-wide focus to improving emergency department services and links with intensive care issues.
Definitions:
Outpatient services provided = the number of outpatient and other non-admitted services minus services such as emergency, pharmacy, pathology, diagnostic imaging, community health services, district nursing services and other outreach services.
People treated as inpatients or emergencies = the number of admitted patient episodes plus the number of emergency services not resulting in admission. For example, some people will attend the Emergency Department and then be admitted to hospital. These people will only be counted once as inpatients and not counted as emergency patients for this particular figure.
People admitted to hospital = the number of admitted patient episodes of care. For example, one person might be admitted to hospital on two separate occasions, they would then be counted as two episodes of care.
People treated in emergency departments = the number of accident and emergency services provided. For example, a patient attends emergency three times, then it is counted as three separate attendances to the emergency department.
People received elective surgery = the number of people admitted for elective surgery from the elective surgery waiting list in either Category 1, 2 or 3.
People waiting for elective surgery = the number of patients waiting for elective surgery from Category 1, 2 or 3 with a status of ‘waiting’ or ‘booked’.
The report for the September quarter 2008 shows Townsville Hospital treated 1,904 patients from the elective surgery waiting list - an increase of almost 17% on the same period last year.
The number of people waiting for their elective surgery procedure decreased by 19% and, most importantly, the number of patients waiting longer than clinically desirable for their elective surgery declined from 467 to 148, a massive 68% decrease compared to the same quarter last year.
Townsville now has the second shortest long wait elective surgery list of Queensland’s 10 major hospitals.
Health Minister Stephen Robertson said these record numbers of elective surgery procedures were testament to the hard work of Queensland Health staff in Townsville and evidence of the positive impact the Bligh Government’s Health Action Plan was making to improving access to essential health services.
“Our $10 billion Health Action plan is steadily transforming health services in Queensland, and there’s no better proof of this than the amount of elective surgery being performed at Townsville Hospital,” he said.
“This increase is part of a trend across the State, which has seen a record number of elective surgery procedures performed in Queensland public hospitals in the last three months.”
“Importantly, no Category 1 patients waited longer than the recommended 30 days for surgery, matching the June quarter figures and improving on the same figures from this time last year,” he said.
“In the September quarter, 90 per cent of Category 2 patients received their surgery within the recommended 90 days.”
Mr Robertson said the report also showed 56,753 specialist outpatient appointments were conducted over the September quarter, an increase of 7% compared to the same quarter last year.
The number of inpatients treated at Townsville Hospital also rose 4% per cent, although emergency department attendances fell over the past three months.
Compared to the September quarter 2007, Townsville’s emergency department experienced a 7.5% reduction in ED attendances over the months of July, August, September.
Mr Robertson said just over 14,800 people presented to the hospital’s emergency department in the last three months, compared to 16,000 over the same period in 2007.
It is clear that reports of clinical staff illness in the emergency department had contributed to the pressures witnessed at Townsville in September this year.
“However this decline will not cause us to revisit the acceleration of the expansion of Townsville’s emergency department.
“We will continue with the $16 million ED expansion which have already delivered an extra eight emergency beds as ED presentations had still increased by 3.5% over the same quarter two years ago.”
“Queensland Health has also put in place a comprehensive access block strategy to cope with pressures in emergency departments throughout Queensland.
“With hospital admissions state-wide increasing by more than double population growth, I have endorsed the *eight point, ‘Whole-of-Hospital Plan’ developed by Senior Emergency Clinicians to reduce access block across our major public hospitals to reduce emergency department and admission waiting times even further.
“I have nothing but praise for our dedicated staff and I thank them all for their hard work.
A complete version of the Queensland Public Hospitals Quarterly Performance Report (September 08 quarter) will be available in the ‘What's New’ section of the Queensland Health website at http://www.health.qld.gov.au/
Ends.
MEDIA: Kate Van Poelgeest 3234 1185 or Martin Philip 3235 2680
* The eight points are:
• Implementing robust internal processes to improve bed availability.
• Ensuring timely and appropriate discharge protocols are in place with executive directors of Medical Services and Nursing directly involved in managing this.
• Enabling key staff to have input into developing strategies to reduce pressure on emergency departments.
• Introducing into performance contracts for District CEOs personal accountabilities for managing organisational issues impacting access block.
• Focussing on whole of hospital performance indicators for access block.
• Developing and implementing predictive software to enhance bed management.
• Working with the Divisions of General Practice to enhance access to GP and other community-based services.
• Creating a senior position within Queensland Health to bring an organisation-wide focus to improving emergency department services and links with intensive care issues.
Definitions:
Outpatient services provided = the number of outpatient and other non-admitted services minus services such as emergency, pharmacy, pathology, diagnostic imaging, community health services, district nursing services and other outreach services.
People treated as inpatients or emergencies = the number of admitted patient episodes plus the number of emergency services not resulting in admission. For example, some people will attend the Emergency Department and then be admitted to hospital. These people will only be counted once as inpatients and not counted as emergency patients for this particular figure.
People admitted to hospital = the number of admitted patient episodes of care. For example, one person might be admitted to hospital on two separate occasions, they would then be counted as two episodes of care.
People treated in emergency departments = the number of accident and emergency services provided. For example, a patient attends emergency three times, then it is counted as three separate attendances to the emergency department.
People received elective surgery = the number of people admitted for elective surgery from the elective surgery waiting list in either Category 1, 2 or 3.
People waiting for elective surgery = the number of patients waiting for elective surgery from Category 1, 2 or 3 with a status of ‘waiting’ or ‘booked’.