Proportion seen on time

The proportion of presentations 'seen on time' is the proportion of presentations for which the waiting time to commencement of clinical care was within the time specified in the definition of the triage category: 

  • Resuscitation: Immediate (within seconds)
  • Emergency: within 10 minutes
  • Urgent: within 30 minutes
  • Semi-urgent: within 60 minutes
  • Non-urgent: within 120 minutes.

For further information on triage category, see the Glossary.

Between 2013–14 and 2017–18, the proportion of Emergency presentations that were seen on time decreased from 75% to 72%. The proportion seen on time varied across states and territories.

Visualisations of the performance indicator data are available in Waiting times.

Performance indicator: Waiting times for emergency department care—proportion seen on time

The National Healthcare Agreement performance indicator Waiting time for emergency hospital care—proportion seen on time can be related to the Australian Health Performance Framework dimension ‘Accessibility’ within the domain ‘Health system performance’. Under the NHA, it relates to the outcome area of 'Australians receive appropriate high quality and affordable hospital and hospital related care'. Information on individual hospital performance for this indicator is also available on the MyHospitals website.

In 2017–18, 72% of Emergency presentations were seen on time. Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals had the lowest overall proportion of presentations seen on time (67%), and Other hospitals had the highest proportion (89%).

From 2014–15 onwards, there were some changes to the way data were reported for this indicator. Therefore information presented from 2014–15 onwards are not comparable to previous years.

See Appendix A for information on the quality of data provided for the National Healthcare Agreement performance indicator.