Timely admissions at Orange Hospital, new data reveals

The Bureau of Health Information quarterly healthcare report was released on Wednesday. BHI's new report is based on data recorded across public health services in NSW from the start of January, 2023 to the end of March, 2023. The report states 81.4 per cent of people who presented in Orange were seen on time.

This is despite a slight increase of presentations at the Emergency Department (ED), with 7681 people presenting, 1.4 per cent more than the same quarter in 2022.

Chief executive officer of the WNSWLHD, Mark Spittal, was pleased to see some improvements in the first quarter of 2023, compared to the last quarter of 2022.

Also making news: 'We haven't killed each other yet': John and Angelo still the takeaway Kings 20 years on

These occurred at a time when, generally, attendances to emergency departments and arrivals by ambulance increased.

"The latest BHI Healthcare Quarterly report shows Western NSW LHD has improved in a number of key performance measures - including time to start treatment, and time to transfer patients from ambulance to ED staff, when compared with the preceding October to December 2022 quarter," Mr Spittal said.

"I want to thank our dedicated staff who continue to perform exceptionally in these challenging and busy times."

Also making news: Old-school arcades and mouth-watering food: Smoking Brothers levels up at Great Western

Dubbo Hospital also had an increase in emergency department attendances, with 9913 presenting at emergency in the first quarter of 2023.

While there was a decline in the percentage of patients being seen on time at Bathurst Health Service compared with the same period in 2022, it was only minor - 0.1 percentage points - and there were some positive signs of improvement when comparing the data with the previous quarter.

The news was not as good for Dubbo Hospital, with its percentage of patients starting treatment on time decreasing 10.5 percentage points to 74.3 per cent from January to March, 2023 compared with the same quarter of 2022.

The state recorded 770,089 emergency department attendances during that time, which was the highest of any January to March quarter since BHI began reporting in 2010.

Also making news: The Weekender List: What's on in Orange this June long weekend?

Ambulance response times were also part of the latest quarterly report.

BHI chief executive Dr Diane Watson said there had been improvement in response times across NSW.

"Despite the increasing demand, ambulance response performance has continued to improve following record long response times in mid-2022," she said.

Out of the three major Central West areas, Dubbo had the most ambulance responses, 4785, while Orange had 3150 and Bathurst had 2557.

All saw increases compared with the January to March quarter of 2022.

Also making news: Pharmacist's warning as flu season returns

Across NSW, the median response time of ambulances to incidents of the highest priority was eight minutes.

Orange and Bathurst both had median response times of eight minutes, while Dubbo was slightly faster at seven minutes.

For emergencies, Dubbo, Bathurst and Orange were all faster than the state median of 14 minutes, with their response time being 11, 12 and 13 minutes respectively.

Each area improved their median response time by one minute compared with the same quarter in 2022.

For urgent priority situations, the median response time in Orange and Bathurst was 18 minutes, and they were again bested by Dubbo, with its response time of 17 minutes.

Seventeen minutes was actually a decrease of two minutes compared with the same quarter in 2022, while Orange and Bathurst's urgent median response time was unchanged.

All three centres were ahead of the state median response time of 25 minutes.

Reading this on mobile web? Download our news app. It's faster, easier to read and we'll send you alerts for breaking news as it happens. Download in the Apple Store or Google Play.

.