Wait times in an Australian emergency department: A comparison of mental health and non-mental health patients in a regional emergency department

Worldwide, emergency departments in regional and remote areas have a higher per capita mental health presentation rate than their metropolitan counterparts. Evidence suggests that mental health presentations to metropolitan or city emergency departments are exposed to longer waiting times, extended length of stays, and higher rates of access block than non-mental health presentations. However, there is little research investigating the experiences for mental health and non-mental health presentations in the emergency department in regional and remote areas. The aim of the current study was to explore wait time and length of stay for mental and non-mental health patients at a regional emergency department. Audit data from 38,782 presentations to a regional emergency department in NSW over a 12-month period in 2019 were reviewed. The STROBE cross-sectional research checklist was adhered to for reporting of results. Time to be seen, length of stay, and access block (length of stay longer than 8 hours) were described and compared for mental and non-mental health patients. It was found that mental health patients in this study disproportionately experience longer wait times and length of stay in a regional emergency department. Future research is needed to identify whether this issue is present across other Australian regional emergency departments and review funding models to address the discrepancy. These findings make a unique contribution to the literature as previous research focussed on metropolitan emergency departments and only identified time to be seen and length of stay, largely ignoring differences in access block between mental health and non-mental health patients.