Stewart Barbara: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStewart Barbara: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9638. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]8.BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) to theMinister of Health: What is the average waiting time in hospital accident and emergency departments?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): I am advised that the Ministry of Health does not collect a national figure for the average time waiting to be seen but the latest results of the emergency department health target is that 93 percent of patients were treated admitted and discharged from an emergency department within 6 hours. I did do a ring-around this morning and can advise a couple of hospital average lengths of stay in emergency departments—that is the average time a patient spends in the emergency department including getting their treatment. At the North Shore Hospital the average time a patient spends in its emergency department has decreased by nearly 4 hours since 2008 from 7½ hours to 3½ hours. I am told that the average length of stay including treatment at the Whakatāne Hospital emergency department is just over 2 hours and at the Christchurch Hospital it is 2¾ hours. I do have to say to the member there will occasionally be times when patients experience a longer-than-anticipated wait in an emergency department which may be the result of a combination of factors such as the seasonal flu.Barbara Stewart: What does the Minister have to say to 82-year-old Mr John Francis Cornell who after being taken by St John Ambulance to Palmerston North Hospital waited for more than 9 hours without being seen?Hon TONY RYALL: I ask the member to bring that case to my attention and I will look into it. I have to say that 9 hours is way outside the 6-hours expectation that one would really expect in an emergency department. I have to say that we will look into that because that is an unacceptable performance.Barbara Stewart: Would he personally expect to be seen by a doctor within 9 hours of waiting at a hospital if he was suffering bleeding from the bladder and he has said that this is unacceptable?Hon TONY RYALL: That is completely unacceptable and yes I would expect to be seen. That is the reason why the Government has instituted the target requirement that patients be treated and seen within the emergency department within 6 hours at 95 percent. I would say to the member that if she brings that case to me I will check the circumstances and will make sure that what she has been advised is correct and we will make sure that that sort of case is brought to the attention of the district health board. It is completely unacceptable.Barbara Stewart: Will he acknowledge that the Government’s initiative to provide “Better sooner more convenient care” is actually poorer later and much less convenient?Hon TONY RYALL: No. As that member well knows we have massively improved the level of service that New Zealanders are getting in emergency departments and in their hospitals. That member will recall that it was only 5 years or so ago that old people lay on hospital trolleys in corridors at the North Shore Hospital under bright fluorescent lights for more than 3 days on end.Hon Annette King: Does he agree with Mike Ardagh the designated emergency department health target champion who said recently that there is no standard measure for readmission into hospital after discharge from the emergency department within 6 hours and there ought to be; if so is he going to do something about that measure?Hon TONY RYALL: If that was the circumstance now it was certainly the circumstance when that member was Minister of Health for 6 years. What I can tell the member is that—Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked a straight question. It is nothing to do with what happened when Labour was in Government. Either he has an answer for it or he does not.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Does the Minister require the question to be repeated? Would the Minister please answer the question.Hon TONY RYALL: Hospital readmission rates are measured generally across the sector. What I can assure the member as I am sure she was told by Professor Ardagh is that we are working with clinicians in developing a suite of quality measures to indicate the level of performance within hospital emergency departments. Things are certainly improved from what they were when that member was Minister of Health and people waited for days on end in hospital emergency departments.