Despite carrying out almost 10% more urgent surgery than expected, Otago public hospital services came close to meeting their overall elective surgery targets last financial year.
The number of patients receiving surgery was almost 50 ahead of the target numbers, figures in the Southern District Health Board's hospitals' advisory committee reports showed.
When the complexity of the surgery was considered, the services were 1.57% behind what was planned for elective procedures.
The board recently agreed to increase acute surgery operating time by 35 hours a week after increasing concern about the hospital's inability to deliver acute surgery to patients in the best time, but this is yet to be introduced.
Emergency Medicine and Surgery group manager Dr Colleen Coop's report also showed the overall operating deficit for the group was $585,000 better than expected, returning a deficit of $123.7 million.
Her report showed Dunedin Hospital was still well behind the requirement that 95% of patients spend no longer than six hours in the emergency department, with only 74.5% meeting the target in June.
Capacity in diagnostic services, observation areas, beds available and after-hours medical staffing meant breaches still occurred, Dr Coop said.
The department would continue to review its internal processes to give patients the best chance of remaining within the department no longer than three hours.
Approval has been given by the board for a 10-bed observational unit for the emergency department, but work on this is still some time away.
