Archived Fact Sheets

Fact Sheet - The state of our public hospitals, June 2007 - Western Australia

Snapshot of our public hospitals in Western Australia during 2005-06.

PDF printable version of Fact Sheet - The state of our public hospitals, June 2007 - Western Australia (PDF 101 KB)

Overview

• In 2005–06, Western Australia had 91 public hospitals.
• The number of public hospital beds, per 1,000 weighted population, fell to 2.5 in 2005–06 from 3.1 in 1998–99. Western Australia was below the national figure in 2005–06.
• In 2005–06 Western Australia ranked second for the amount of public hospital recurrent expenditure per person in the country ($894, an increase of 33 per cent in real terms from 1998–99).

The following table shows how Western Australia compared to other states and territories across key performance measures:

Performance measure	Ranked
Public hospital beds – number per 1,000 weighted population	4th
Public hospitals – proportion accredited	5th
Public hospital recurrent expenditure per person, weighted population	2nd
Public patient admissions in all hospitals – number per 1,000 weighted population	3rd
Elective surgery – percentage of people seen within the recommended time	3rd
Elective surgery – percentage of admissions that waited longer than one year	3rd
Elective surgery – median waiting time	2nd
Emergency department – percentage seen within the recommended time	2nd
Emergency department – median waiting time	2nd

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Admissions

The number of public hospital admissions, per 1,000 weighted population, in Western Australia decreased from 207 in 1998–99 to 195 in 2005–06.

Public hospitals	2005-06		1998-99
	Western Australia	Australian Total	Western Australia	Australian Total
Admissions per 1,000 weighted population	195	210	207	207

• Western Australia’s public hospitals admitted 394,960 patients. Of these, 90 per cent were public patients.
• The proportion of public patient admissions in all Victoria’s hospitals (including private hospitals) was 59 per cent.
• The average length of stay for overnight patients in Western Australia’s public hospitals in 2005–06 was 6.4 days, the same as in 1998–99. The length of stay is below the national figure.

Elective Surgery

• In 2005–06, more than 48,900 patients underwent some form of elective surgery procedure as public patients in Western Australia.
• Overall, 82 per cent of public elective surgery patients in 2005–06 were seen within the recommended time.
• The median waiting time for elective surgery in the state remained at 28 days, four days shorter than the national median waiting time.

Elective surgery	2005-06		1998-99
	Western Australia (%)	Australian Total (%)	Western Australia (%)	Australian Total (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	82	81	84	90
Category 1: within 30 days	81	83	86	91
Category 2: within 90 days	68	74	76	86
Category 3: within 12 months	92	88	88	93

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Emergency Departments

• In 2005–06, there were more than 420,000 emergency presentations to larger public hospital emergency departments in Western Australia.
• Of those, around 71 per cent were treated within the clinically appropriate period, which is above the national average of 69 per cent.
• The median waiting time to be seen was 20 minutes, four minutes shorter than the national median.

The following table shows how Western Australia performed in 2005–06 across the five emergency department triage categories:

Emergency departments	2005-06	1998-99
	Western Australia (%)	National (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	71	69
Triage Category 1: Need for resuscitation	98	99
Triage Category 2: Emergency	77	77
Triage Category 3: Urgent	69	64
Triage Category 4: Semi–urgent	67	65
Triage Category 5: Non–urgent	90	87