Western Australia’s emergency department waiting times and GP numbers have changed very little, according to a new report.
A Productivity Commission report into government services focusing on health found the States health services were not performing well.
Although the report found the number of GPs had increased to 4,090 in 2023 (up from 3,998 in 2022), the full-time equivalent rate of GPs per 1000 people fell from 101.8 to 95.8.
Nationally, only the ACT (88.7) and the Northern Territory (81.1) had worse results at 88.7 and 81.1 respectively. New South Wales and Victoria led the way with around 113 FTE GPs.
Full-time equivalent hours in WA also fell from 2,836 in 2022 to 2,758 in 2023.
Emergency department hospital waiting times were a mixed result.
For emergency presentations in 2023-24, WA had the third best wait times with 69% of patients admitted according to national time standards, behind the ACT at 73% and NSW at 76%.
But for urgent presentations WA was the worst performing state with only 32% of patients seen on time. The next lowest was SA at 38%.
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Compared to the previous years’ figures, WA urgent presentations stayed the same and 67% of emergency patients were seen on time.
AMA (WA) President Michael Page said the report confirmed what doctors already knew about the State’s health system.
“We’ve got massive capacity constraints in the public hospitals,” Dr Page told Medical Forum.
“We don’t have enough beds, we have emergency departments that are full of patients, in large part because we don’t have enough beds on the wards for them to go to. That’s causing the ambulances to ramp.
“The ambulance service itself is performing well and that’s, of course, good to see but I think that the constraint on the health system is really at the level of the hospitals.”
Health Minister Amber Jade Sanderson said the WA government had added 800 beds to the system in the last four years and had budgeted for another 600 beds for the next term of government.
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Dr Page said recent pledges to increase health spending ahead of the State election could go some way to freeing up hospital beds and reducing wait times, but they do not get to the heart of the issue.
“We can chip around at the edges. We can make the system a bit more efficient. We can prevent unnecessary admissions with some of the things that we’ve heard announced, but we are still going to need more beds,” he said.
“The population’s still aging, complexity of care is still increasing, and our population is growing, so we do need a more resilient hospital system.”
You can read the Productivity Commission repot here.
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