Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff said data from the Health Dashboard showed while demand was increasing across the state, improvement in some areas was encouraging.

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Mr Rockliff said small improvements in wait times at emergency departments across the state had been reported, citing the collective statistics for all ED's.

At the Launceston General Hospital ED, patients seen within 4-hours of presentation rose by 116 cases, but remained at 50 per cent between September and October, while patients seen on time in all five triage categories recorded some improvement.

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He said the increasing demand presented challenges to treating patients within recommended timeframes, but would continue to increase bed capacity and improve response times.

The number of patients on the elective surgery waitlist who were waiting for a surgical procedure dropped from 4204 in September to 4070 in October, with urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent patient numbers all recording a reduction.

The average number of days waited beyond the clinically recommended time for surgery for overdue patients rose for semi-urgent and non-urgent patients, while urgent patients dropped from 54 days to 50.

Mr Rockliff said the reduction was driven by the government's four-year plan for elective surgery.

"Our clinician-led $196.4 million four-year plan for elective surgery continues to deliver with further reductions to the waiting list of nearly 1900 people since January this year," he said.

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While there were reductions across several categories the waiting list for outpatients rose from 24,472 to 24,512, with wait times across categories one, two and three all rising.

Mr Rockliff said while the number of patients waiting for outpatient appointments continued to rise, attendances at outpatient clinics also increased, which resulted in more patients receiving care than pre-COVID.

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Citing the increase in outpatient attendance, Mr Rockliff said the government would invest $2 million into the Outpatient Transformation Program.

He said the government was preparing for borders to reopen on December 15, and encouraged anyone who had not been vaccinated to make an appointment.

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