Hon Tony Ryall

Minister of Health

27 May 2012
      Media Statement       

Record ED Success

Health Minister Tony Ryall says the latest National Health Targets results show record success for emergency departments throughout the country. Hospital EDs are treating patients faster than at any time since the targets began in 2009.
 
“More than half the district health boards are now achieving the target of 95 per cent of patients getting admitted, discharged or transferred from an ED within six hours,” Mr Ryall says.
 
“This is what you get when doctors, nurses and their teams work more efficiently together. EDs are a barometer of how a whole hospital works and the only way to reduce ED waiting times is if the rest of the hospital works in sync with ED.”
 
“It’s particularly good to see that Capital and Coast DHB has improved by five per cent this quarter. This is the second consecutive quarter they have made the largest improvement of all the DHBs – they’ve improved by 13 per cent since quarter one.”
 
111, 794 elective surgeries were performed by the DHBs, five per cent ahead of target. That’s five thousand more surgeries for patients than planned. 
 
Mr Ryall says five district health boards, Wairarapa, Hawke’s Bay, MidCentral, Lakes and Southern, have reached the 95 per cent result with the immunisation target.
 
“Nationally we have achieved 92 per cent coverage which is a great improvement from 2007 when only 67 per cent of two year olds were immunised on time,” says Health Minister Tony Ryall.
 
“We are very close to achieving the target nationally – only 367 extra children who are about to turn two need to be immunised before 30 June to bring the national coverage up to 95 per cent.
 
Every cancer patient ready for radiation treatment started within four weeks of their first specialist assessment. This is the world gold standard for cancer treatment and we are extending the target to include medical oncology patients next quarter.
 
‘Better Help for Smokers to Quit’ has also made significant improvements. 91 per cent of smokers now get advice and help to quit compared to less than half when the targets began.
 
This is the first quarter that the new target ‘More heart and diabetes checks’ has been reported. The target is for 60 per cent of eligible patients to have had their cardiovascular risk assessed within five years.  We’re aiming to lift that to 90 per cent by June 2014. 
 
National Health Target results will be published in newspapers on Tuesday.

ENDS

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