Launceston General Hospital has decreased its elective surgery wait times, despite patient numbers increasing

In 2021-2022, non-urgent elective surgery wait times decreased by 49.73 per cent when compared with the previous year, while semi-urgent elective surgery wait times saw a decrease of 80.6 per cent.

Patients experienced an average decrease of 280 days for non-urgent elective surgery, while semi-urgent elective surgery wait times also saw a reduction of 25 days.

Urgent elective surgery waiting times remained constant with no change, with a medium wait time of 22 days.

When a patient is placed on a public hospital elective surgery waiting list, a clinical assessment is made to determine the urgency with which they require elective surgery, which is the clinically recommended time.

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The proportion of patients seen within the recommended time is the percentage of patients who were admitted for surgery within the clinically recommended time as defined by their clinical urgency category.

The proportion of patients admitted within the clinically recommended time for urgent elective surgery decreased from 64 per cent in 2020-2021 to 63 per cent in 2021-2022, while semi-urgent elective surgery saw an increase from 39 per cent to 45 per cent, and non-urgent elective surgery saw an increase from 30 per cent to 65 per cent.

Overall, the proportion of patients admitted within the clinically recommended time at the LGH was higher than the state average of 57 per cent.

Despite the decrease in waiting times and the increase in patients admitted within the clinically recommended time, the number of admissions for non-urgent, semi-urgent, and urgent elective surgery continued to grow.

In 2021-22, admissions from non-urgent elective surgery increased overall by 128 per cent compared with 2020-21, likely due to COVID-19 restrictions and limitations on hospital services during this period.

Admissions from semi-urgent elective surgery increased by 91.2 per cent, while admissions from urgent elective surgery increased by 106.7 per cent, continuing the trend of all admissions increasing since 2013-2014, year on year.

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