WARWICK is putting a focus on health for 2018, with hospital revamps, increased staff numbers and shorter waiting times benefiting by the community.

Latest data from Queensland Health on Emergency Department performance revealed Warwick Hospital was above the state average in waiting times.

For November, all category one patients, which are considered to be in a life-threatening situation, were seen within the clinically recommended time of two minutes.

This number dropped to 79% of patients in categories two and three, before rising to 80% for those in category four and 95% for category five patients.

This takes the average for Warwick to 84%, compared to the Queensland average of 68%.

"The Emergency Department has seen an increase in presentations over the last 12 months, with an additional three patients per day in 2017,” DDHHS cluster operations manager Matthew Boyd said.

"We review data to see what that impact is on our staffing and on the community to make sure we're meeting the waiting times that we are required to. That looks at how it impacts on us from a workload point of view, and we review that consistently.

"Recently in the last 12 months, due to the rise in presentations, we have increased our nursing staff to meet the presentation increases.”

Warwick Hospital director of nursing Anita Bolton said the facility needed to continue to adapt to changing populations.

"Warwick is a growing community,” Ms Bolton said. "We have some new aged- care facilities coming, and we expect our population to continue rise and age, therefore we do need to increase our capacity.

"All category one patients who present to Warwick Hospital's Emergency Department are seen immediately.

"Category one patients are those experiencing life-threatening illnesses or injuries.”

The data also showed 92% of patients had a stay of under four hours from presentation in ED, compared to the state average of 75%.

"We know patients are more likely to have adverse outcomes the longer they are in,” Mr Boyd said.

"To have 92 percent with the increased service is outstanding.”

The news comes off the back of tenders opening for the development of the new ED renovations taking place this year, with $3m committed by the DDHHS for the project.

"The renovation is at tender stage, and we hope to announce who the successful tender is by the end of January,” Ms Bolton said.

"The biggest improvement for the patient experience at Warwick Hospital will be a revamped triage area and increased privacy when you are talking to the triage nurse.

"Clinically, the biggest increase will be doubling our capacity. We are already future-proofing and we have our estimated need of nursing staff, and we are planning to engage those staff once it is built.”