Australia’s public hospitals have received a glowing report card with figures showing more patients received elective surgery and emergency department care in 2010-11.

The latest information from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare also shows all states and territories had rates of the serious blood stream infection Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) below the national benchmark of two cases per 10,000 days of patient care.

There were 1873 SAB cases reported in public hospitals between July 2010 and June 2011.

The ‘Australian hospital statistics 2010-11: Emergency department care and elective surgery waiting times’ report shows the nation’s public hospitals admitted 621,000 patients from elective surgery waiting lists in 2010-11, up 15,000 on the previous year.

The figures show patients are waiting slightly longer for surgery, with 50 per cent of patients waiting 36 days or less for public elective surgery, up from the median waiting time of 32 days five years ago.

AIHW spokesperson Jenny Hargreaves said despite this, longer waits have dropped.

“Over the last year there was a drop in the proportion of patients waiting more than a year to be admitted for their surgery, from 3.6 per cent in 2009-10 to 2.9 per cent in 2010-11,” she said.

Figures reveal the number of emergency department presentations in major public hospitals topped 6 million for the first time, reaching more than 6.2 million, with the proportion of patients seen on time for their triage category in emergency departments remaining stable at about 70 per cent.

At Melbourne’s The Alfred Hospital, 87 per cent of emergency department presentations were treated within 10 minutes compared to the national average of 79 per cent.

The figures come as Australia’s states and territories work towards achieving new elective surgery and emergency department targets, outlined under the national health reforms.

Elective surgery targets call for 100 per cent of patients to have their surgery within the clinically-recommended time in all urgency categories by the end of 2015 for the larger states, and before 2016 for Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory.

The emergency target calls for 90 per cent of all patients presenting to an emergency department in a major public hospital to receive all necessary care or be admitted to hospital within four hours by 2015.

The latest AIHW statistics have been added to the MyHospitals website - www.myhospitals.gov.au