The figures from the Bureau of Health Information (BHI), released on Wednesday, show a 50 per cent jump in emergency department attendances between July-September 2020 and the same period this year, with all COVID-19 tests carried out inside the hospital's heritage building counted in the ED figures.

In all, there were 18,722 ED attendances in the three months to September 30 this year, an average of 200 a day and up from 12,507 a year earlier.

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But it was not only COVID testing that was stretching emergency staff between July and September with year-on-year increases for four of the five triage categories in the ED.

The most significant hike came in the T2 (emergency) category, up 12.5 per cent from 679 to 764, while T5 (non-urgent) admissions were up 7.2 per cent from 538 to 577. Arrivals to the ED by ambulance were up 9.1 per cent from 1127 to 1230.

But Western NSW Local Health District acting chief executive Mark Spittal said the BHI figures showed Bathurst's emergency staff were performing well despite the increased strain.

"The number of patients starting their treatment on time (80.6 per cent) was six percentage points higher than the average for Bathurst's peer group (hospitals similar to Bathurst)," Mr Spittal said.

"The median time to treatment for an emergency (seven minutes) was two minutes faster than peer group results and the NSW average (both nine minutes)."

Meanwhile, the number of elective surgeries performed at Bathurst Hospital fell dramatically across the three-month period following a statewide pause on procedures as health authorities responded to threat posed by the Delta variant of COVID.

Bathurst performed just 79 non-urgent surgeries between July and September, down from 308 for the same period in 2020.

And while there was a slight drop in the average waiting time for non-urgent surgeries at Bathurst Hospital, the local wait of 336 days is still well above the average of 256 days for similar hospitals across the state.

But the news wasn't all bad, Mr Spittal said.

"Bathurst Hospital continued to perform urgent elective surgeries throughout the quarter and 100 per cent of those were performed on time," he said.

"More than 95 per cent of elective surgeries (96.4 per cent) were performed on time," he said.

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