Shane Reti: ED waiting times no longer being reported

Emergency department wait times are a good indicator of how the health system is performing, but they are no longer being reported, Dr Shane Reti says.

OPINION:

Emergency department wait times are a good proxy measure of how a health system is coping.

It is an interface between primary care and secondary care and the gateway into hospitals. ED wait times can generally reflect both increasing clinical burden in the community as well as access to primary care such as GPs.

On the other side of the gateway, the hospital side, ED wait times can also reflect capacity issues as it relates to the number of hospital beds available and the health workforce available to triage, undertake laboratory and radiology investigations and to implement patient management.

The national target for waiting times is 95 per cent seen within six hours. In recent weeks there have been reports of 30 per cent of people at Waikato DHB waiting longer than six hours and some people substantially longer.

This reporting is for one DHB with the data under the Official Information Act, so how does this important measure look across all the DHBs?

The table below shows the latest data and herein lies the problem – it's nearly a year old, going back to June 2021. Why is that?

A table showing how DHBs fared against targets for ED wait times until the end of the 2020/21 financial year.

I asked the Minister why this important measure was a year old and no longer being publicly reported. He said it was stopped in June 2021 and is under consideration. This is simply not good enough.

Question: Why is it nearly a year since emergency department wait times data was last reported publicly to June 2021 and when will the next reporting be?

Reply: The performance measure on the proportion of patients admitted, discharged or transferred from an Emergency Department (ED) within six hours' reported on the Ministry website was part of the previous health target reporting.

The previous health targets were retired in June 2021 and public reporting of the results was discontinued as part of the introduction of the Health System Indicators framework. The Ministry of Health is currently considering data reporting in the new health system.

ED wait times are an important measure in their own right, even more so when we are but six weeks away from a health reform that will be one of the biggest public sector mergers ever.

To demonstrate any benefit from these reforms, it will be important to have before and after measures. If health outcomes are better after the reforms then they have been of benefit. If health outcomes are not improved then they have been a massively expensive ideological rort. My point here is: how will we know any of this if there are no "before" measures to compare to?

Reply 9334 (2022) has been answered Portfolio: Health (Hon Andrew Little)

Question: Are emergency department waiting times longer than six hours assessed and if so what are the figures for each DHB annually for the past five years?

Reply: I am advised that 'the proportion of patients admitted, discharged or transferred from an Emergency Department (ED) within six hours is monitored through performance measure Shorter Stays in ED within the Ministry of Heath accountability framework. Results for this measure have been reported on the Ministry website at the attached link: https://www.health.govt.nz/new-zealand-health-system/health-targets/how-my-dhb-performing 9334 (2022)

• Dr Shane Reti is a Whangārei-based list MP and National's Health spokesperson.