It is clear Tasmania will not reach its targets for improved health results as the sector deals with the COVID-19 pandemic says Health Minister Sarah Courtney.
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The latest Health and Human Services dashboard data for the December 2019 quarter has been released.
Coronavirus: All the latest updates on COVID-19 for Tasmania
In December 2019 there were 11,110 patients on the elective surgery waiting list across all categories up from 9219 in January 2019.
Across all categories, 64 per cent of elective surgery patients were seen within the clinically recommended time up from 54 per cent in January 2019.
Category 1 patients are waiting an average of 76 days longer for surgery than clinically recommended, Category 2 are waiting 150 days and Category 3 are waiting 135 days.
64 per cent of people presenting in emergency departments were seen within four hours of arrival.
Ms Courtney said the data showed a continued growth in demand for acute health services.
"It's clear that our targets to improve results won't be achieved, with our focus on taking actions to appropriately respond and prepare our hospitals around Tasmania for the fight against COVID-19, including the temporary suspension of all non-urgent elective surgeries last week," Ms Courtney said.
"It's important for Tasmanians to know that we will continue to work hard to improve the level of care available for Tasmanians as the situation continues to evolve and as we move into recovery phases in the future."
In other news:
For Human Services, the dashboard showed the number of applications on the housing register has slightly increased since the September quarter from 3444 to 3478 in December 2019.
240 people were housed during the December 2019 quarter.
It is taking an average of 65 weeks to house priority applicants up from 50 weeks in the March 2019 quarter.
The number of children in out of home care has slightly increased to 1331 in December 2019 compared to 1292 in January 2019, with 48 children in active transition.
Housing and Human Services Minister Roger Jaensch said the latest data showed stability across most indicators and the positive impact of the government's Strong Families, Safe Kids reforms.
"The indicators remain stable, however it is worth highlighting that the children in active transition figure remains at around one-fifth of January 2018's figure, where there were 278 cases awaiting allocation," Mr Jaensch said.
Mr Jaensch said the state's housing indicators remained "relatively stable".
"We are currently finalising our work with shelters to expand emergency accommodation options as we continue to progress key projects to boost supply of long-term social housing," he said.