Health sector hit with blowout in critical wait times

A third of patients needing urgent and emergency care are not being seen on time at Victorian public hospitals.

Ambulance response times also ballooned almost three minutes across the state, along with the number of triple-0 calls not answered within 10 seconds.

A new Productivity Commission probe into the health sector last financial year shows emergency department wait times grew, as the state tackled the Covid-19 Delta outbreak.

The number of patients in an emergency being seen in less than 10 minutes fell from 67 per cent in 2019-20, to 62 per cent last year.

While the number of patients receiving urgent care in less than 30 minutes slipped from 65 per cent to 63 per cent over the same period.

Fewer patients were also being admitted and released from the emergency department within four hours.

When it came to the state’s ambulance system, patients were also increasingly dissatisfied with how long it took for an ambulance request to be answered, and how long it took to arrive.

Only 88.9 per cent of triple-0 calls were answered in at least 10 seconds, compared to 94.4 per cent of calls in 2019-20.

Nine out of 10 patients across Victoria received an ambulance in 21.6 minutes, up from 18.7 minutes the previous year.

Turnover of Victoria’s public hospital elective surgery waitlist was also 3.6 per cent lower than the national average of 84.5 per cent.

Half of Victorian patients were forced to wait a day longer, or 28 days, on average for an elective surgery in comparison to 2019-20.

However, they were actually admitted the quickest, with the national figure ballooning nine days to 48 days.

At least three in 10 patients faced an extended wait beyond the longer than specified time frames.

This includes almost half of patients in urgency category two, who had to wait longer than 90 days.