The Minns Labor Government has established a dedicated command centre to coordinate the management of peak hospital demand in real time this winter, ensuring patients receive access to safe and timely hospital care.
The Health System Operations Command Centre co-locates System Flow Officers, NSW Ambulance, and Patient Transport Services strengthening system-wide coordination and operational oversight.
The System Flow Officers work closely with all 17 local health districts and speciality health networks, to identify emerging pressures and assess demand for care in emergency departments.
When the Command Centre identifies an ED experiencing a high volume of emergency presentations, it works closely with NSW Ambulance to safely redirect suitable patients with non-life-threatening conditions to alternative hospitals with available capacity.
This coordinated approach helps patients access appropriate hospital care sooner, and ambulances can return to the community to continue responding to emergencies.
During periods of heightened demand, the Command Centre also prioritises patients awaiting Patient Transport Services for transfer home or to residential aged care facilities. This helps improve patient flow, make beds available sooner for incoming patients, and allows clinical staff to continue providing care to those with the greatest need.
Winter illness activity
ED presentations and admissions for influenza-like illness have continued to increase in recent weeks, including for children aged less than 10 years.
Influenza notifications have increased and currently circulating at a moderate level, with 2,509 notified cases in the week ending 25 July. This represents only a small proportion of the total number of people with influenza in the community, because only those who have a laboratory test will be notified.
During periods of increased hospital demand, healthdirect is an important pathway to care outside of the hospital, helping to reduce avoidable presentations, support frontline staff and ensure people are quickly connected with the right care, including virtual care options and urgent care centres.
To help reduce pressure on the healthcare system and its excellent staff, NSW hospitals are implementing several initiatives and strategies, including:
- providing the community with out-of-hospital alternatives for patients with less serious conditions, including urgent care services and virtual care services, which can be accessed by calling healthdirect; and
- enhancing capacity by:
- extending operational hours for some hospital services later into the day and across weekends and enhancing escalation processes
- engaging clinical and support staff to improve patient flow, address hospital capacity and support new models of care to reduce length of stay
- conducting scenario testing using previous data to understand different types of winter pressure and evaluate the best way to respond should these scenarios arise
The community is also reminded that vaccination remains the best protection against serious illness from respiratory viruses, including influenza, RSV and COVID. All vaccines are available from GPs, community pharmacies, and Aboriginal Medical Services.
If you do get sick this winter, and it's not life threatening, please call healthdirect on 1800 022 222, for 24-hour advice. A registered nurse will answer your call, ask some questions and connect you with the right care so we can keep our emergency departments for the people who need them most.
More hospitals and beds, more health workers
The Minns Labor Government is making record investments to recruit more health workers and deliver more beds and hospital, including:
- Investing $11.9 billion to deliver 32 new and upgraded hospitals and more than 2,500 additional beds and treatment spaces across the state including 800 in Western Sydney, including:
- $120 million for an additional 60 beds for Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals;
- $38 million for 18 additional beds in specialty areas at Westmead Hospital, boosting the medical capacity in high demand areas of respiratory, cardiology and the ED Short-Stay Unit
- Recruiting 5,3000 nurses, 740 paramedics, 1,400 doctors and 1,500 allied health workers and investing $10.3 billion to recruit an additional 9,000 health workers and expand hospital capacity;
- Expanding virtual care across NSW
- Supporting families through vaccination programs and investing in the nasal spray flu vaccine.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Health Ryan Park:
"We have established a command centre to oversee our hospital system's winter preparedness and response to the increased demand that we see during this season.
"If you don't have a life-threatening condition, please call healthdirect on 1800 022 222 where you can receive free health advice and you could potentially avoid an unnecessary wait in an ED.
"We also encourage people to stay up to date with their vaccines.
"In the meantime, we are bolstering the capacity of our hospitals with more hospitals, beds and treatment spaces as well as more health workers."
Quotes attributable to NSW Health Secretary Susan Pearce AM:
"We've had command centres before in period of peak demand, but now we're making it permanent to give us strong oversight over how the system is responding to the demands of the season.
"This is just one of the ways we have prepared the healthcare system for winter. We also have the capacity to surge up bed numbers as needed, extend operational hours for hospital services, and support our staff to improve patient flow through hospitals."
