Canberra health system falls short of elective surgery, emergency targets

There were 2161 patients who waited longer than clinically recommended for surgeries over the 2022-23 year, ACT Health's annual report revealed. The target was 430 patients.

Canberra Health Services' annual report showed 41 per cent of semi-urgent patients had their elective surgery completed within the recommended timeframe.

A semi-urgent patient is classified as one whose admission within 90 days is "desirable for a condition causing some pain, dysfunction or disability which is not likely to deteriorate quickly or become an emergency".

The ACT's target for semi-urgent patients to been seen in the recommended timeframe was 80 per cent.

For urgent patients, those needing surgery within 30 days, 84 per cent had their surgeries within the recommended timeframe. The target for this category was 100 per cent.

The territory's public health system fell short of its elective surgery target over the year. The government had aimed to deliver more than 14,800 elective surgeries over the year but only 12,629 were delivered.

ACT Health's annual report said surgery targets were not met due to a range of reasons including an increased demand for emergency surgery, COVID-19 outbreaks, the implementation of the digital health record and the theatre fire at Calvary Public Hospital Bruce.

The ACT government had aimed to deliver 60,000 elective surgeries over four years, with the deadline for this finishing at the end of next year. The government has said they are working with private providers in an attempt to meet this commitment.

But opposition health spokeswoman Leanne Castley said she had met with providers who were willing to do more surgeries.

"We have met with private providers who have said that they have the capacity to take on additional elective surgeries to help with getting the list down," she said.

"[Private providers] certainly have the capacity to do more and I understand that it costs money so I am not quite sure of all of those arrangements ... but my understanding is that it is as simple as ACT Health saying 'let's get this list down'."

Ms Castley said she was disappointed at the elective surgery figures.

"It's disappointing because we're not talking about cosmetic surgery. It's not that sort of elective surgery. We're talking about people who have pain ... they're living in pain for longer than they should and it's just not good enough," she said.

Emergency department waiting times also continued to remain poor.

Fewer than half of all patients stayed in the emergency department for less than four hours. Only 47.9 per cent of patients were out of the emergency department within four hours but ACT Health had a target of 90 per cent. Only 38 per cent of urgent patients, those needing to be seen within 30 minutes, were seen within the clinically recommended timeframe.

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The report said the emergency department wait times were due to staff shortages, a reduction in short-stay beds at the former Calvary hospital when it was used for COVID patients and high bed occupancy.

"The frontline staff deserve better than this. They just need a better system. They're working in such a broken, broken system and they're exhausted," Ms Castley said.

Canberra Health Services chief executive Dave Peffer wrote in the foreword to the report said the organisation was focused on implementing improvements to the ways services are delivered.

"Together, we will improve health access, patient experience and outcomes," he said.

"We will encourage education and growth amongst our team. We will integrate learning, teaching and research supported by partnerships with educational institutions, industry, consumers and our community.

"We will launch a recruitment campaign to encourage the best clinicians and support staff to join us and continue to support team wellbeing by providing a safe and nurturing work environment."

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