The Ministry of Health target for all DHBs is that 95% of patients are admitted, discharged, or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.
The SDHB struggles to meet this target, lack of capacity in its outdated building being one main reason.
It missed the benchmark in all four quarters of 2017-18, and as a result the ministry wrote to the SDHB urging action to improve its performance.
SDHB nursing director Jenny Hanson said the department had been "very busy" over the past few days, although not the busiest it had been.
"It is winter and we are seeing large numbers of presentations on most days," she said.
"While the hospital has been at or near capacity each morning, we have not needed to postpone planned elective surgery for our patients."
The SDHB has implemented several initiatives to improve wait times in recent months, including expanding ward space and accelerating a "Patient Flow/Quality" project to improve movement of people out of ED and either home or into the main hospital.
SDHB commissioners were recently advised the department was looking at further short-term options to improve its service, as well as considering medium and long-term options to improve performance.
"We remind people that we see the most unwell people first, so for others there could be long waits," Ms Hanson said.
