Patients in NSW hospital emergency departments receive good care, and are not kept waiting for hours on end without being attended to, the NSW Health department says.
Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner told Fairfax newspapers one in three people wait more than eight hours in emergency departments for a bed.
She obtained the figure after submitting a freedom of information request.
But Richard Matthews, deputy director general of NSW Health, says the figure is publicly available on the NSW Health website, and has been misrepresented by Ms Skinner.
He told AAP 100 per cent of patients with life threatening, (triage category one) conditions are seen by a doctor or nurse within two minutes of presenting at emergency departments.
Such patients might include people suffering from a heart attack or serious car accident.
Patients with imminently life threatening conditions, (triage category two), such as those who may be bleeding heavily, are seen by a doctor or nurse within ten minutes of arriving at an emergency department, Dr Matthews says.
If a bed in an appropriate hospital unit was not available, they might in the meantime be admitted to intensive care units or coronary care units, he said.
Patients with less serious conditions requiring admission were admitted to medical, surgical, or paediatric wards, Dr Matthews added.
They were not, as he believes Ms Skinner's comments imply, neglected.
"A whole lot of (procedures) will have been done in the emergency department.
(People) would have been seen by doctors and nurses, had x-rays, scans, blood tests, all those things would have been done," he said.
"The benchmark is to have 80 per cent in the ward that they require within eight hours."
This benchmark was set by the Australian College of Emergency Medicine.
"Getting them to the appropriate ward in a reasonable time is what we aim for but they are still receiving appropriate treatment in the meantime."
In the July to September quarter, an average 71 per cent of patients were admitted to hospital wards across NSW.
"(This was) the only quarter where it fell below the benchmark in the last year," Dr Matthews said.
To address the situation, an extra 290 beds had been added to the NSW health system this financial year, he said.
Ms Skinner's claim that the number of patients waiting more than eight hours for a bed had risen by 19 per cent in the last six months was misleading, Dr Matthews said.
"That July to September quarter, which is flu season, is when we are under the greatest pressure.
"It is always difficult," he said.
To lessen pressure on emergency departments, Dr Matthews said patients with primary care issues, such as splinters under fingernails and sore throats, should see their general practitioners.
"They are not emergencies," he said.
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