Hon Dr Shane Reti
Minister of Health

Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has announced a funding boost for Palmerston North ED to reduce wait times and improve patient safety and care, as well as new national standards for moving acute patients through hospitals.

“Wait times in emergency departments have deteriorated over the past six years and Palmerston North Hospital, despite the best efforts of management and staff, has some of the longest emergency department wait times in the country,” says Dr Reti.

“That’s why the Government is investing an extra $6 million in a package of initiatives that will provide extra clinical staff, a more efficient process when patients are discharged from hospital, and a more child-friendly experience for children in ED.”

The initiatives funded by this package include:

• Establishing a discharge lounge to help patient flow and timely discharge from the hospital, so there is capacity for acute admission from ED
• Additional resources to expand ED capacity, by using the fracture clinic to treat and discharge low acuity ED patients after hours, which will reduce waiting times for these patients
• Staffing for the newly created children’s area of the ED
• Creating an early supported discharge team for older patients
• A system flow coordinator to ensure patients are admitted, transferred or discharged more efficiently.

Dr Reti says that on average, patients are also staying longer at Palmerston North Hospital than any other hospital across the country.

“Patients are often staying longer in hospital than they need to, which reduces the number of beds that can be used for other acute cases and contributes to long waits in ED for patients to be admitted.

“While it’s a long-standing issue in Palmerston North, it’s not unique to this hospital. That’s why Health New Zealand is establishing new, national standards to improve acute patients’ experience in hospitals, from when they present to when they are discharged.”

Health New Zealand’s new Acute Flow Operational Standards will set a baseline for quality care across the country and help clinicians and hospital managers put the right systems and processes in place to manage acute patients.

The standards include:

• Improving use of the discharge or transit lounges to support inpatients who are being discharged that day, which allows ward beds to be made available earlier in the day for acute patients from ED.
• Ensuring there is an ED coordinator on each shift responsible for making sure patients being admitted are transferred to a ward as soon as possible, freeing up the ED beds, including for new ambulance arrivals.
• Active monitoring and management of patient flow across the hospital to reduce unnecessary delays in hospital and the ED.

Dr Reti says these standards will have a positive impact for patients in hospitals across the country and help Health New Zealand improve both ED wait times and wait times for elective surgery by getting the basics right.

“These standards are part of the work needed to make progress on our health targets, so that we don’t have to cancel elective surgeries to accommodate acute cases and make sure patients presenting to EDs can be more efficiently admitted, transferred or discharged.

“If every hospital across the country is getting these basics right, we can make sure patients are moving through the hospital at the right time, with the right support.

“All these initiatives will further our goal of providing timely access to quality healthcare and ensuring New Zealanders get the public services they need.”

Notes:

The shorter stays in Emergency Departments target is for 95 percent of patients to be admitted, discharged to transferred from within an ED in six hours. In 2017/18 this was 89.8% and has since fallen to 71.2%.

Further information on government targets can be found here: Health targets | Ministry of Health NZ

Funding for the Palmerston North ED initiative includes $3.5 million for the 2024/25 financial year, with an estimated $6.07 million overall. This comes from Health New Zealand baseline funding.

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