Some of the busiest hospital emergency departments in Australia have seen significant reductions in hospital ramping, according to the latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) quarterly results.
One of the key indicators of hospital ramping is the proportion of patients transferred from paramedics to ED staff within 30 minutes – also known as Transfer of Care (TOC).
Sydney’s St George Hospital – which received over 82,000 ED attendances last year – saw a 25 percentage point improvement in transfer of patient from paramedic to ED staff in the December 2024 quarter compared with the same period the previous year.
Blacktown Hospital – which received over 67,000 ED attendances last year – saw a 23.2 percentage point improvement.
Campbelltown Hospital – which received over 92,000 ED attendances last year – saw a 9.3 percentage point improvement.
Liverpool Hospital – which received over 90,000 ED attendances last year – saw a 7.2 percentage point improvement.
“Relieving pressure on our emergency departments and ensuring people receive care in a timely manner have been top priorities of our government,” said NSW Health Minister, Ryan Park.
“Such significant challenges have been met with a significant half-a-billion dollar investment in ED relief. Today, I’m so pleased to see encouraging progress in our effort to reduce ramping.
“But I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves, because there is still much more to do,” he said.
The improvements come despite the health system recording the highest ever number of patients arriving to EDs by ambulance – almost 200,000 in a single quarter.
The data also showed that NSW Ambulance managed 291,463 incidents and 391,370 responses, the highest number of any quarter since BHI started reporting in 2010.
The Australian Paramedics Association (NSW) says that “without smart solutions, things will continue to get worse”.
“The Government loves to complain about the cost of healthcare but refuses to invest in community-based solutions that provide patients early access to the care they need, keeping them out of the back of Ambulance and out of Hospitals,” said APA (NSW) President, Brett Simpson.
“At a time when expansion and development of NSW Ambulance programs that keep people out of the hospital and at home, like the Virtual Clinical Care Centre and Extended Care Paramedics, NSW Ambulance is mismanaging and gutting these programs,” he said.
The data also shows worsening response times for P1As (highest priority), the highest acuity incident with only 62.6% of P1As, receiving a response within the clinically recommended timeframe of 10 minutes.
“What this shows is that increases in staffing are not a silver bullet. If we can’t get the right care to our patients at the right time, then they will get sicker and sicker until their only option for care is an emergency department,” said Mr Simpson.
“We are calling on the State and Federal Government to stop buck passing and start working on solutions. It’s not just better for our patients, it’s better for your budgets.”
