Almost 80,000 people left a NSW emergency department in the last quarter of 2025 without completing treatment, new data show – but the health minister says that's 'misleading'.
The number of ambulance dispatches and emergency department presentations in NSW hospitals in the last quarter of 2025, hit the highest levels since the Bureau of Health Information began keeping records began in 2010.
The number of ED attendances was also the highest since 2010, with 820,009 attendances for the quarter, an increase of 2.2% (17,482) compared with the same quarter a year earlier, according to the report, which includes data from more than 200 NSW hospitals, according to the latest quarterly BHI report.
“We have a system in crisis,” NSW AMA president Dr Kathryn Austin said.
“And yet again, we are not seeing any tangible plans from the NSW government to deal with the rising tide of patients needing hospital care for increasing complex issues.”
Treatment started “on time” for 66% of patients in that quarter – around the same as the same quarter in 2024 – and the median time from arrival to leaving the ED was 3 hours and 46 minutes, up 12 minutes compared to a year earlier.
Presentations in triage categories 1, 2 and 3 were up, while triage categories 4 and 5 were down compared with the same quarter a year earlier, the report said.
“People needing non-urgent elective surgery waited longer, and we only saw more elective surgeries performed in this quarter than the same quarter last year only due to the assistance of the private health system,” Dr Austin said.
Dr Austin called on governments to implement the Special Commission of Inquiry into Healthcare Funding Inquiry’s recommendations and invest in prevention.
“We know that … elderly and NDIS patients are languishing in acute care hospitals due to a lack of beds in aged care facilities and disability homes, but they are not singularly responsible for the logjam in our public hospitals.
“Under-funding, under-staffing and lack of vision in preventative care play significant roles – all under the control of the state government.”
One number sparked a heated debate between Dr Austin and the state health minister, Ryan Park – 79,004 patients left a public hospital without receiving or completing treatment, up 15.9% on the previous year and the highest ever recorded.
Dr Austin said the number of patients who left an ED without finishing treatment had risen by almost 10,000 in a year.
“This is highly concerning given almost 35% of those were in triage category 3 – needing urgent care for potentially life-threatening conditions and unsuitable to be treated at an urgent care centre.”
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But NSW health minister Ryan Park said it was “very misleading” to say those 79,004 patients had left without any care.
“That’s not accurate,” he told media.
“The vast majority … have left without getting that completion work, which is often a discharge summary.
“Of course, my preference is to make sure they get that discharge summary, because it helps with their continuum of care through their GP. We acknowledge that, and we’ll need to focus on that.
“What I don’t want the community seeing, though, is a picture that says a person goes in and doesn’t receive care.
“That’s not accurate. The person is receiving care, has received care, [and] the completion of care is often that discharge summary.”
NSW Health deputy secretary Matthew Daly said it was “simply not true” that more than 79,000 patients left ED without completing treatment.
Of that figure, two-thirds of patients were treated but had not received their discharge summary to “close off” their treatment, while a third chose not to wait to be treated, he said.
“Up to two-thirds across all triage categories are patients who actually receive their treatment,” Mr Daly said.
“The trigger that falls into this category is that they may not wait for a discharge summary, which is really important in the continuum of care, for purposes of informing their GP around ongoing care.
“We provide that to the GP by email, post, fax, whatever it might be, but to imply there are 79,000 patients in NSW EDs who have not received treatment and leave is just simply erroneous, and the data supports that position.
“We do not want an alarm to go out to people to say, ‘well, what’s the point of going because I’ll just end up waiting and then leaving’.
“That is fundamentally not true, and it is not good for their healthcare for them to believe that that’s the situation.”
Mr Daly said the one-third of patients who did not receive treatment were category 4 and 5, “which is really the domain of primary care and other alternative care pathways”.
“I’ll be speaking with the BHI about that, because I think it’s sending the wrong signal to the community.”
Mr Park said the increase in level 2 and 3 ED presentations showed that more people were not able to access primary care in the community.
“Therefore, when they come to our hospital, they are sicker,” he said.
“Secondly, the hospitals are under pressure, because we’re seeing 1100 beds taken offline every single day. That’s not sustainable, that’s not realistic, and it’s certainly not helpful to the care that we’re providing in our state’s hospitals.”
Mr Park said there had been a 50% increase in the number of older aged care patients who had finished their hospital treatment but could not get access to a residential aged care bed and were “stranded” in hospital.
“We are seeing big increases in the number of NDIS patients similarly doing the same, stranded in our beds, not able to access NDIS support.
“There is a national crisis in relation to aged care patients stuck in our state’s hospital systems.
“We need additional funding for initiatives such as Hospital in the Home, initiatives such as geriatric outreach and initiatives where the Commonwealth are providing incentives and funding for aged care providers to take up those complex patients.”
Mr Park said NSW public hospitals had improved in terms of ED performance, surgery wait times and fewer semi-urgent and non-urgent presentations.
The proportion of triage 2 patients with life-threatening conditions being treated on time increased in the October-December 2025 quarter compared to three years earlier, a statement by Mr Park said.
And the proportion of triage 2 patients in Western Sydney who were treated on time rose from 27% to 37% in a year, he said.
“Our hospitals continue to show signs of progress and improvement in terms of ED and surgery wait times, which has coincided with our investments in more hospitals, more staff, and more pathways to care outside of the hospital,” Mr Park said.
“We’re focused on saving our EDs for the patients who need it most while sparing people with non-life-threatening conditions from an unnecessary wait.
“These improvements however are being offset by Commonwealth bed block – patients ready to be discharged but unable to leave because they are waiting for Commonwealth aged care or NDIS placements.”
As for ambulance data, in the last quarter of 2025 the number of calls rose 7% (to 408,518) while incidents increased by 3.1%, (to 300,367), but the number of ambulance responses dispatched to those incidents only rose 0.6% compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
The number of elective surgeries rose 7.2% on the previous year, with the biggest increase in the “semi-urgent” category, which increased 10%.
In December, there were 92,812 patients on the surgery waiting list, down 7.4% (7,423) from a year earlier. The report said 83.1% of elective surgeries were performed on time, which was relatively stable compared to a year earlier.
“The median waiting time for patients who received non-urgent surgery was 324 days – up 15 days from the same quarter a year earlier, but down from the record high (343 days) in the April to June 2025 quarter,” the report said.
Meanwhile, another report shows that half of Australians are going to Medicare urgent care clinics for non-emergency health issues because of a lack of GP availability and delays in appointments.
The survey by Compare the Market found that Australian households made an average of 4.36 urgent care visits in a year.
The main reasons that patients chose an urgent care clinic were:
- The issue felt urgent or serious: 36%
- Their GP practice was closed or unavailable: 27%
- The GP appointment was too far in the future: 24%
- They couldn’t get a GP appointment at all: 21%
The report said UCC usage was particularly high in major cities, with 54% of respondents in Melbourne, 53% in Brisbane, and 50% in Sydney reporting frequent or occasional urgent care use for non-emergency issues.
Read the full BHI report here.