Hospitals across Northern NSW Local Health District (NNSWLHD) continued to experience high emergency department and planned surgery activity, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Health Information (BHI).
The BHI Healthcare Quarterly Report (April–June 2025) shows 55,974 patients attended an emergency department at one of NNSWLHD’s eight hospitals during the quarter. This brings to a close the 2024-25 financial year, which saw a total of 228,492 ED attendances across the year – the busiest year on record for NNSWLHD.
NNSWLHD Chief Executive Tracey Maisey thanked staff for their dedication and commitment to delivering high quality, timely care across the District.
‘Our hospitals across Northern NSW are busier than ever, as we get on with the job of caring for our community. I’d like to sincerely thank each and every one of our staff for continuing to go above and beyond to provide the best care possible for our patients,’ Ms Maisey said.
Emergency services
Throughout April to June 2025, there was an increase in ED presentations in the top three triage categories, with 7,130 emergency (triage category 2) presentations and 20,350 urgent (triage category 3) presentations, up 6.8 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively compared with the same quarter last year.
ED treatment started on time for 74.9 per cent of patients across NNSWLHD, representing an improvement of 4.8 percentage points compared with the same quarter in 2024, and higher than the NSW average of 65.7 per cent.
Across the District, 9,838 patients arrived by ambulance during the quarter, an increase of 262 patients or 2.7 per cent compared with the same quarter in 2024. The number of patients transferred by ambulance paramedics to ED staff within the 30-minute benchmark time improved by 1.3 percentage points to 76.3 per cent, when compared to the same quarter in 2024.
Atotal of 81.3 per cent of patients not needing to be admitted or transferred to another hospital were discharged from the ED within four hours, significantly above the state average of 66.1 per cent.
Planned surgical care
Surgical teams across NNSWLHD performed 4,041 planned surgeries, an increase of 232 surgeries or 6.1 per cent on the same period last year. This represents the second busiest quarter for planned surgery in the District since the BHI began reporting in 2010, following the record 4,093 planned surgeries performed in the July-September quarter in 2020.
During April to June 2025, the majority of all planned surgeries (75.2 per cent) were performed within clinically recommended timeframes, with the vast majority of urgent planned surgeries (93.9 per cent) performed on time.
There were 194 patients on the overdue surgery wait list at the end of June, a significant reduction from 607 overdue surgeries at the end of March this year.
There were 715 babies born at a NNSWLHD hospital during the quarter, an increase of 3.9 per cent or 27 more babies than during the same period last year.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
