Message from the Interim Chief Executive
This year has seen some extraordinary achievements in patient care, innovations and in our vast capital infrastructure program. In 2021/22 financial year we performed over 30,000 operations, we saw more than 216,000 presentations to our emergency departments (EDs), cared for over 132,000 patients admitted to our hospitals, delivered more than 1.3 million outpatient services, cared for over 5000 babies and delivered around 250,000 community health services. These numbers show the enormity of the work achieved but behind the numbers are people, our community, patients, carers and consumers who have received high-quality, safe care from our staff. All this has been achieved during what has been an incredibly challenging time to work in health – during a one in 100 year pandemic. And we still managed to sustain the performance of our services across the district – which I am proud to say is one of the highest performing districts in NSW. I want to acknowledge and thank our remarkable staff who have worked so hard to care for our patients during some very difficult times, especially during this busy winter. The fact that our hospitals managed to continue to treat patients in our emergency departments within clinical timeframes and remain among the best performing hospitals in the state is a testament to the dedication and commitment of our hardworking staff. The $321 million Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital redevelopment is finally complete. The hospital’s emergency department (ED) is three times larger than before and a new two-storey building housing community health services opened. For the very first time, Hornsby Hospital will have renal dialysis and chemotherapy services for patients which will change the lives of so many. Also just completed is the $19.5 million Adolescent and Young Adult Hospice (AYAH), which is due to open to patients early next year. The AYAH will provide patients 15 -24 years with life-limiting illness a contemporary home away from home that offers respite care, symptom management and end-of-life care. We have built a new interventional neuroradiology suite for our stroke patients at Royal North Shore Hospital. Our capital program also continued with the progression of the much-needed $425 million redevelopment of Ryde Hospital.
Our district is fortunate to have such great staff and it was wonderful to see so many staff rightly receive awards and honours. District staff were recognised in the 2022 Queen’s Birthday Honours, and RNSH’s emergency department was a finalist in the NSW Premier’s Awards for its domestic violence screening project. And we continue to recognise our staff in the district’s Exceptional People Awards with more than 65 staff nominated for awards this year. We worked with the Aboriginal community to overcome the barriers for them in accessing healthcare services, with Mental Health Drug and Alcohol service’s Hey You Mob, Tell Us You Are Here program. We have expanded our youth mental health services. We now have more mental health Youth Response Teams embedded in the community right across the district to help young people in distress, avoiding the need for them to go to emergency departments in the vast majority of cases. We have partnered with northern Sydney GPs and hospital staff on an initiative to keep the frail and elderly out of hospital, providing them with faster access to specialists and support in the community. And we established the virtual hospital and expanded telehealth services. Our enhanced palliative care unit at Mona Vale Hospital is now admitting more patients directly from the community into our care, avoiding them needing to present to the ED. We strengthened our research focus and outcomes with the establishment of a new position, the NSLHD Chair of Research, which Professor Bruce Robinson has been appointed. He will be responsible for leadership advisory services and for driving the implementation of the district’s research strategy. We also released our strategic plan which will guide our organisation for the next five years. More than 800 staff took part in shaping the plan which sets out our future directions. Thank you to our staff, volunteers, consumers and our patients, carers and their families. I very much look forward to seeing what we can achieve in the year ahead.
Lee Gregory Interim Chief Executive Northern Sydney Local Health District
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NSLHD 2022 Year in Review
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