Use of emergency departments for lower urgency care 2017–18 to 2023–24

Data for the NNAPEDCD are compiled annually. The NNAPEDCD is restricted to formal public hospital EDs, and as such does not include all emergency or urgent care in Australian hospitals. Formal EDs have: 

• a purposely designed and equipped area with designated assessment, treatment and resuscitation areas
• the ability to provide resuscitation, stabilisation and initial management of all emergencies
• availability of medical staff in the hospital 24 hours a day
• designated ED nursing staff 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and a designated ED nursing unit manager.

Emergency departments (including ‘accident and emergency’ or ‘urgent care centres’) that do not meet the criteria above are not in scope for the NNAPEDCD, but data may have been provided for some of these by some states and territories.

Since the NNAPEDCD includes only presentations to the EDs described above, it does not include all emergency or urgent care provided by public hospitals. This may affect comparability of results for regional and remote areas. The interpretation of the criteria that identify an ED differs across states and territories resulting in different levels of reporting to the NNAPEDCD. 

Between 2003–04 and 2013–14, the data coverage of the NNAPEDCD was estimated by comparing the number of ED presentations reported to the NNAPEDCD with the number of non-admitted patient emergency occasions of service reported to the National Public Hospital Establishments Database (NPHED). The NPHED estimate was considered to be a more complete count of emergency care services, because it included emergency care data for all public hospitals, regardless of whether they had a formal emergency department, or other arrangements for providing emergency care. This provided an estimate but not an exact measure of the coverage. 

For 2014–15, an approximate estimate of coverage was calculated based on emergency occasions of service that were reported to the NPHED in 2013–14. Using this approach, national coverage of the NNAPEDCD was estimated at about 88% in 2014–15. Estimated coverage by remoteness area of the hospital (using the same approach) varied among remoteness areas, ranging from 100% in Major Cities to 18% in Very remote areas (AIHW 2015). 

However, emergency occasions of service were not reported to the NPHED from 2014–15 onwards, which meant it was no longer possible to calculate the proportion of all emergency occasions of service that were reported to the NNAPEDCD. 

Estimates of coverage from 2015–16 onwards have not been calculated.

The following data quality issues should be taken into consideration when interpreting these data: 

• While there are national standards for data reported to the NNAPEDCD, there is variation over time and across states and territories in the way ED presentations are defined and counted. This may affect comparability of results across local areas.
• There are also variations in the completeness of data capture between locations, which may affect comparability across local areas.
• From 2020–21, all state and territory health authorities provided data for the NNAPEDCD using the Non-admitted Patient Emergency Department Care (NAPEDC) National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) specification. Prior to 2020–21, the following states and territories provided data to the NNAPEDCD using the NAPEDC National Best Endeavours Data Set (NBEDS) specifications: Queensland (from 2015–16); Victoria and Western Australia (from 2016–17). The data provided using the NAPEDC NBEDS may not be entirely comparable with data provided using the NAPEDC NMDS.
• Change in coverage due to the opening or closing of hospitals should be considered when interpreting changes over time. In particular; in the Northern Territory, Palmerston Regional Hospital opened in August 2018; in 2018–19, six hospitals started reporting in Western Australia; and in 2019–20, South Australia commenced reporting for three hospitals. These all constitute a change in coverage.
• The counts and rates included in this report are derived using correspondences based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Edition 3 (2021) and Primary Health Network (2023) boundaries. Counts and rates will vary from previous publications which used the ASGS Edition 2 (2016) and Primary Health Network (2017) boundaries. Additionally, this report uses the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) of usual residence to apply correspondences. This will result in differences from reports using alternative levels of geography for applying correspondences.

Notes:

1. In 2018–19, Western Australia commenced reporting for 6 hospitals.
2. In 2019–20, South Australia commended reporting for 3 hospitals.
3. In August 2018, Palmerston Regional Hospital opened in the Northern Territory.

Source: AIHW (2018, 2025).

Detailed information about data quality issues and changes to coding over time are described in the Emergency Department Care 2017–18: Australian hospital statistics (AIHW 2018) and Hospitals info & downloads – About the data for 2018–19 to 2023–24 (AIHW 2025).

It should also be noted that care should be taken with the interpretation of results for the period from 2020–21 to 2022–23 due to the impact of COVID screening activity recorded in emergency departments in a number of hospitals, particularly in rural and remote locations. This may have artificially inflated the volume of lower urgency category services for those hospitals during that period.

AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) (2015) Australian hospital peer groups, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 25 July 2025.

AIHW (2018) Emergency department care 2017–18: Australian hospital statistics, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 19 June 2025.

AIHW (2025) About the data - Hospitals - AIHW, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 25 July 2025.