The Minns Labor Government is continuing to rebuild essential health services for the people of NSW by investing $23 million to reduce overdue surgeries as part of the 2025-26 Budget.
It follows 12 years of neglect of our health system by the previous Liberal Government who presided over a record 17,000 overdue surgeries.
The Minns Labor Government will invest $23 million to reduce the number of planned surgeries waiting longer than clinically recommended.
This additional funding is expected to enable an additional 3,500 surgeries to be completed over the next year.
It comes as the latest Bureau of Health Information quarterly data shows overdue surgeries have increased by 1,745 patients, to 8,587, in the past quarter.
This is down from around 14,000 in March 2023, when the NSW Government established the Surgical Care Governance Taskforce, but an increase from around 2,000 in mid-2024.
There have been challenges that have contributed to this recent increase including Tropical Cyclone Alfred that disrupted services in northern NSW and the mid north coast, and workforce availability challenges that continue in some parts of the state.
Meanwhile, there is encouraging data coming out of NSW hospital emergency departments.
Pleasingly, EDs have enjoyed a significant decrease in semi-urgent and non-urgent presentations over the past year. Semi urgent presentations decreased by 18,472 or 6.2 per cent. Non urgent presentations decreased by 7,923 or 11.7 per cent.
It coincides with over 45,000 patients being diverted away to care outside the ED over the March 2025 quarter, including to urgent and virtual care through HealthDirect. This saves patients with non-life-threatening conditions a long wait in hospitals. It also frees up EDs for patients who need it most.
It comes after the Minns Labor Government invested a half billion dollars into emergency department relief through creating more pathways to care outside the hospital as well as improving patient flow within the hospital.
The transfer of patients from paramedics to ED staff within 30 minutes has improved across NSW by 4.7 percentage points to 83 per cent.
Treatment on time for T2 emergency cases has also improved by 2.4 percentage points across the state.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Health Ryan Park:
"For 12 years, the Liberals neglected our health system, presiding over a record number of overdue surgeries.
"From day one, tackling overdue surgeries has been our priority.
"We made significant progress in reducing the overdue surgeries that we inherited, down from 14,000.
"But we know there's always more that we can do to improve the accessibility of planned surgeries."
