The Mid North Coast Local Health District has performed well, according to the latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) hospital quarterly report.
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That report shows the health district recorded improvement across several key areas of emergency department and elective surgery performance.
The health district's health care quality committee chair, Dr Joanna Sutherland acknowledged the hard work and dedication of the staff.
"The staff continue to ensure the Mid North Coast Local Health District provides quality healthcare to meet the needs of its community," Dr Sutherland said.
"We will continue to work closely with clinicians to improve waiting times for patients visiting our emergency departments and those undergoing elective surgery across the district."
Dr Sutherland said the NSW Health expenses budget for 2017-18 is $21.6 billion representing an almost $1 billion increase over the 2016-17 Budget.
The district was successful in receiving $490,000 in funding for additional elective surgery on the Mid North Coast as part of the additional $3 million the NSW government is providing through the Increasing Access to Elective Surgery Initiative 2017, the committee chair said.
"This funding will ensure more total knee replacements and total hip replacements will be performed this financial year," she added.
This funding will ensure more total knee replacements and total hip replacements will be performed this financial year.
- Dr Joanna Sutherland
According to the report, from October to December 2017, 31,660 people attended emergency departments at public hospitals across the district at Port Macquarie, Kempsey, Macksville and Coffs Harbour hospitals.
An important priority is to reduce the time people spend in the Emergency Department and the report shows approximately 24,600 patients or 77.9 per cent of patients left EDs across the district within four hours of arriving, Dr Sutherland said.
"MNCLHD has also improved the time it takes to transfer patients from the care of an ambulance to the emergency department.
"This quarter, the average transfer of care time was 11 minutes - a full minute better than the same time last year - while almost 92 per cent or around 5370 patients arriving at Mid North Coast public hospitals by ambulance were transferred to the emergency department within the 30-minute benchmark."
The BHI Healthcare Quarterly also reports on elective surgery performance across the district.
The MNCLHD continues to make very effective use of its Network operations between its larger base hospitals and smaller district facilities, Dr Sutherlarnd said.
"This has enabled us to perform increased levels of surgery each year.
"The Local Health District provided elective surgical services to 2832 patients in the October to December 2017 quarter, with 98.5 per cent, or approximately 2790 procedures performed within the clinically recommended timeframes."
