Emergency Department overcrowding

Summary of the Discussion Paper
Queensland’s public hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) are overcrowded and dysfunctional.

Overcrowded EDs, with long waiting periods to access beds, represent the most avoidable cause of harm in hospitals. The core problem is that much of the workload in EDs is directed at caring for sick persons who are waiting long periods to be allocated a bed. Solving the crisis is not as simple as expanding ED capacity, but requires a whole-of-hospital approach focusing on process improvement.

Reducing ED overcrowding is not expensive. The cost of policies to reduce overcrowding can be offset by savings due to, for example, more timely treatment leading to a reduction in the number of days someone needs a bed. Labor has been negligent in their management of our hospitals and more interested spin and cover-ups than cleaning up their mess.

Background information
Since the release of this discussion paper, the Bligh Labor government has published further damning statistics on the extent of overcrowding in our EDs (http://www.health.qld.gov.au/performance/).

This information was only made public after a successful Freedom of Information application by the LNP. The statistics reveal that in the month of November 2009:

•  Many hospitals treated less than half of patients within medically recommended timeframes. One quarter of triage category 2 patients (2,283 people) – that is an emergency requiring attention within 10 minutes – did not receive treatment within 10 minutes! The figures for the Mater Children’s hospital are even worse.
• Not only are people waiting too long in the ED, more than a third of people arriving by ambulance are stuck for more than 15 minutes in the back of the ambulance because the ED is overcrowded.
• 5,534 Queenslanders arriving at an ED simply gave up waiting and went home without being treated. This is a dangerous situation with many of these people at risk of serious complications. Shockingly, 1110 Queenslanders classified as triage category 3 – that is they required urgent attention within 30 minutes – gave up waiting and went home.

  Dealing With An Unmitigated Crisis In Queensland Hospitals.df