Needing emergency hospital care can be a frightening and stressful experience especially if your child needs care. When your child is sick it can often feel like you need to wait an eternity so we thought we would answer a few common questions about what to do and what to expect.
How good is my local Emergency Department (ED)?
For Beaches residents, Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) does better than most similar sized hospitals at treating patients as quickly as possible. The ED currently treats about 200 patients a day and in the first quarter of 2023, more than 8 in 10 patients (81.8 per cent) started their treatment on time, which is better than the average for hospitals of a similar size in NSW (64.6 per cent).
What should I do when we get there?
Go directly to the red triage charts but if you have chest pain or need life-saving help, you should alert any staff member. Everyone who comes to the ED for treatment is seen by a senior nurse when they arrive. This is called triage.
How long will I wait?
How long you stay will depend on why you have come to the ED and what care you need. Most people end up going home or being admitted to hospital within four hours. Before you head to hospital you can also check on how many people are waiting by going to https://www.emergencywait.health.nsw.gov.au.
What happens when we arrive?
The triage nurse will assess you and determine how urgently you need to be treated depending on how unwell or injured you are. The sickest people will be seen first. Remember that the waiting room may seem empty but staff are also treating patients arriving by ambulance who may need life-saving treatment.
What about children?
At NBH, changes have been made to help reduce stress on children. The hospital has created a separate ED waiting area for children. When you arrive, you will be seen by a nurse and then taken to the Children’s Area of the ED. This area is quieter and less stressful. You and your child will wait here to be seen by the doctor or other clinicians.
What could happen next?
Tests and scans… Some people might need to have some tests done in the ED. Three common ones are blood tests, X-rays and CT scans.
Stay in hospital… Some people who come to the ED need to be admitted to a hospital ward or have surgery. If this is the case for you, staff will explain the next steps.
Go home… When you are well enough to go home, staff will talk to you about what you should do next including seeing your GP, specialist or having other tests in the community.
What will you need?
You will need some important information on arriving including your and your child’s Medicare details and any private health insurance details. It is great to keep a record of medications and any previous illnesses. My Health Record is great for this but even just a small note on your phone is good. It can be really difficult to remember all of this in a time of high stress.
What are my choices if I need to stay in hospital?
NBH is a state-of-the-art private hospital dedicated to the care of people and families of the Northern Beaches community. You can choose to be treated as a private or public patient. Private patients get referrals to senior specialists in private rooms, private hospital rooms with well-appointed ensuites (if clinically appropriate for you), free patient entertainment and private patient menu options.
NBH ED: The Facts
NBH delivers strong results in emergency department and planned surgery performance, according to the Bureau of Health Information’s (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report (January – March 2023).
Throughout the first quarter of 2023, there were 16,928 attendances to the NBH ED and more than 8 in 10 patients (81.8 per cent) started their treatment on time, which is better than the average for hospitals pf a similar size in NSW (64.6 per cent).
Pleasingly, nearly all patients (97.9 per cent) were transferred from ambulance to ED staff within the 30-minute benchmark time, which is significantly better than the average for hospitals of similar size in NSW (77 per cent).
NBH Chief Executive Officer Andrew Newton thanked staff for their dedication and diligence. “These results are a testament to the hard work of our hospital staff – we’re very proud of the team for their ongoing commitment to providing high quality, timely care to the community,” Mr Newton said.
The latest BHI report also shows NBH performed 877 public patient planned surgeries, with almost all planned surgeries (97.8 per cent) performed on time. This result is significantly better than the average for hospitals of a similar size in NSW (72.3 per cent).
Any patients who feel their condition has deteriorated while waiting for their procedure are encouraged to contact their treating doctor for a clinical review and they can be placed in a higher urgency category if required.
Northern Beaches Hospital I 105 Frenchs Forest Road West, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086 I 9105 5000 I Open 24 hours