Christchurch Hospital's emergency department stretched

Record numbers of patients are stretching Christchurch Hospital's emergency department.

The influx matches a big increase in demand for acute care around New Zealand, linked to the ageing population, higher health expectations and financial pressures.

A record 7000 patients were seen at the emergency department in August and annual numbers are up 7 per cent on last year.

Christchurch Hospital emergency medicine specialist Mike Ardagh said the steep rise in patient numbers was a worry as the department had been expecting an increase of between 2 per cent and 4 per cent.

Longer waiting times were a concern, but the hospital was putting systems in place to cope with the increase, Ardagh said.

Doctors did not fully understand the reasons for the rise.

New research by Christchurch's Emergency Care Foundation found most people went to the emergency department because they genuinely thought they needed hospital care.

The study found there were risks in trying to direct apparently non-urgent patients away from the department.

Ardagh said the answer was not to raise barriers to the department, but to lower them at other healthcare access points, such as GPs. Hospital staff were referring appropriate patients to their GP in the hope they would use primary-care services in the future, but no-one would be turned away from the emergency department.

Better management of chronic illnesses and patient flow within the hospital was also important, Ardagh said.

Christchurch Hospital clinical leaders are working on a plan to improve patient flows and manage increased demand in the five years before a new hospital is built.

One plan being considered is to move a department, such as neurology, into Christchurch Women's Hospital to make way for a new general medicine ward.

Chief executive David Meates said at a hospital advisory committee meeting last week that the flow from the emergency department into hospital beds was "significantly constrained because general medicine and cardiology are starting to increasingly back up".

He said yesterday that decisions were being made on the rearrangement of medical departments, but they would not be revealed until the next board meeting.

The Emergency Care Foundation will hold a fundraising dinner and auction at Addington Raceway tonight. All funds raised will go to medical research.

Australian research shows people attending an overcrowded emergency department are significantly more likely to die within 10 days than those who arrive when it is quieter.

An Australasian College for Emergency Medicine review concluded that overcrowding caused 1500 deaths in Australia every year, rivalling the country's road toll.