A SURVEY of patients attending Western NSW Local Health District public hospitals has found most positively rated the care they received in the emergency department.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Almost 26,000 people, from public hospitals across NSW, completed the inaugural Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Emergency Department Patient Survey between April 2013 and March 2014.
In Bathurst, 167 people were asked how they rated the overall care they had received in the Emergency Depart-ment.
Of those, 58 per cent said the overall care was very good, 31 per cent said it was good, nine per cent said the overall care was adequate, while one per cent said care was poor and one per cent described it as very poor.
Also, 167 people were asked how they would respond if family or friends asked about their experience – 66 per cent said it was very good, 30 per cent were neither highly appreciative or critical, and four per cent of people said they would be critical.
When it came to the ambulance service, 95 per cent of the 32 respondents said overall the care they received from the ambulance service was very good. Two per cent thought it was good and three per cent felt it was neither good or bad.
Out of 128 respondents 64 per cent of people described the care they received from the triage nurse was very good. Twenty-five per cent felt it was good, 10 per cent did not think it was good or bad and two per cent felt the care was poor.
Between 62 and 65 per cent of the people were happy with the emergency doctors and nurses.
Of the 141 who took, part in the survey, 62 per cent of people said the care they received from the emergency department doctors was very good. A further 29 per cent said care was good.
Sixty-five per cent of emergency department nurses were considered very good, 31 per cent very good.
Western NSW Local Health District director of operations Lindsey Gough said the results provide some well-deserved recognition of the fantastic work done by local emergency department staff.
“When 85 per cent of Western NSW patients rate the overall care they received in our hospital emergency departments as either very good or good, it’s clear our staff are doing what they can to help people who are often suffering, stressed or in pain,” she said.
The 2013-2014 survey is the first time BHI has focussed on emergency department patient experience, but aspects of previously published NSW Patient Experience Survey Reports broadly correlate to items in the report, including overall experience of care.
