Public hospitals are seeing pre-pandemic levels of ED presentations, but how long patients have to wait depends on where they live.

A report on ED care found there were 8.8 million presentations to public hospital in 2021, an increase of 6.9% from the previous year.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says this is back on trend with pre-pandemic presentation numbers.

Across Australia, 71% of patients were seen on time and there was a median wait of 18 minutes.