Emergency department wait times in Canberra's hospitals have almost halved in recent years, the latest data has shown.
The latest quarterly performance report shows 63 per cent of patients were seen on time between January and March this year. The median wait time was 25 minutes.
It is an improvement from the 2022-23 year where 51 per cent were seen on time and there was a median wait time of 36 minutes.
It was also a drastic improvement on the 2021-22 year where only 48 per cent of patients were seen on time and the median wait was 47 minutes.
The ACT has struggled with emergency department waiting times over recent years and has often recorded the longest waiting times in the country.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said Canberra Health Services had been working hard to improve wait times.
"The upward trend shown in the latest quarterly performance report reflects the hard work and commitment shown by staff across the ACT public health system," she said.
The latest data suggests the territory is sitting around the national average for patients leaving the emergency department within four hours. This showed 57.5 per cent left the department within this timeframe.
"With these latest statistics, the ACT is around the national average for the proportion of patients leaving the ED within four hours of presentation for jurisdictions with publicly available data, and above NSW, Victoria and Tasmania," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
The territory is still struggling with elective surgery wait times. The report showed there were 2099 patients overdue for surgery at the end of March.
There were more than 7500 patients on the list.
Fewer than half of semi-urgent patients, those needing surgery in 90 days, were waiting longer than clinically recommended for their surgeries. The data showed only 39.4 per cent of semi-urgent surgeries had been performed in time during March.
The ACT government has a target to undertake 15,500 elective surgeries by the end of this financial year.
Ms Stephen-Smith said she was confident this would be reached after 3617 surgeries were completed during the first three months of the year.
The territory fell well short of last year's target completing only 12,600 of the planned 14,800 elective surgeries.
"Elective surgery wait times continue to be a challenge across all jurisdictions and remains a key focus for Canberra Health Services," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
Meanwhile, state and territory health ministers have signed a joint-open letter urging the Commonwealth to provide greater funding to public hospitals.
Health ministers want the federal government to deliver a minimum of 45 per cent of funding for each person treated in public hospitals.
They also want a further increase in bulk-billing incentives for general practitioners.
The ministers said state and territory governments were spending billions to intervene in what should be the responsibility of the federal government.
"Everywhere across Australia, state and territory governments are investing unprecedented funding to boost public hospital capacity, beds and workforce," the letter said.
"At the same time, long term problems in other areas of the health system are now coming home to roost.
"The steady decline of general practice over the past decade is being felt across the country. Bulk billing is difficult for many Australians to access, and fewer new doctors are training to become GPs.
"This means Australians are finding it harder to get primary care when they need it. Because of that, people get sicker and end up in hospital for longer."
