That's reflected in a new snapshot of their performance for the first three months of 2020, which reveals that while presentations to emergency departments actually fell, patients faced longer waiting times.

According to the Bureau of Health Information's latest Healthcare Quarterly report, there were 39,633 ED presentations across the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District from January to March.

That was down 6.9 per cent, or nearly 3000 presentations, on the same period in 2019.

Around seven in 10 ED patients (69.7 per cent) were treated on time, up slightly on the previous year yet falling short of the state average of 74.1 per cent.

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However patients waited longer in the ED during the quarter - across the district around 40 per cent of patients waited longer than the four-hour state benchmark.

At Wollongong Hospital, nearly half the patients (45.8 per cent) faced waits of four or more hours. And at Shellharbour and Shoalhaven hospitals, it was a third of patients.

BHI senior director Hilary Rowell said while COVID fears saw ED activity levels fall statewide during March especially - there was an influx of non-urgent patients seeking testing.

"The broader trend in NSW was a decline in ED presentations in urgent categories, and a big increase in non-urgent presentations," she said.

"This was evident mainly in metropolitan hospitals, and was prior to the establishment of dedicated COVID-19 assessment clinics.

"The trend was evident at Shellharbour Hospital which saw a 16.6 per cent increase in non-urgent triage category 5 presentations.

"However at Wollongong Hospital, there was actually a decrease in non-urgent presentations and at Shoalhaven Hospital overall presentations dropped quite sharply by 12 per cent."

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Just over 3000 elective surgeries were undertaken in the ISLHD from January to March, with 83.4 per cent of procedures performed on time - down 6.5 percentage points.

To protect supplies of personal protective equipment, and allow hospitals to prepare for the COVID threat, the National Cabinet suspended all non-urgent elective surgery in Australia from March 26.

NSW hospitals are now working to increase surgical capacity to 75 per cent by the end of the month. And on Tuesday, the state government announced $388 million to ramp up procedures - focusing on patients whose surgery had been delayed by COVID-19.

That will be welcome news to those on elective surgery wait lists - including the 6800 residents awaiting procedures within the ISLHD as at March 31.

"At Wollongong there were fewer surgeries performed in the quarter, and the waiting list increased by six per cent," Ms Rowell said.

"Shellharbour did more surgical procedures compared to last year, yet there was a 15 per cent increase in patients on the waiting list by the end of the quarter.

"At Shoalhaven there was a sharp drop in the number of procedures, down 18 per cent, and the size of the waiting list increased by 25.6 per cent."

However Ms Rowell said it was hard to compare the January to March quarter with previous years.

"It's important to emphasise that this was quite an extraordinary quarter - in the way people lived their lives; in the way hospitals had to change how they were operating," she said.

The BHI report on hospital performance from January to March is a "snapshot of an unprecedented quarter in the delivery of health services" according to an Illawarra health executive.

Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District executive director clinical operations Margaret Martin welcomed the report, released Wednesday, and also said it was a quarter beyond compare.

"The ISLHD, like all health services around the country continues to face unique and extremely challenging times in 2020, which has meant a significant change to the way we deliver health care," she said.

"The quarter started with the most devastating bushfires on record, which had a significant impact in our region and ended with the most dramatic month to date due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Due to the many factors at play in how health services planned for the uncertain demands of the pandemic, caution is advised when comparing the results of January to March 2020 with any previous quarters."

Ms Martin said while elective surgery was down 5.9 percentage points during the quarter with 3083 procedures undertaken, 99.9 per cent of urgent surgeries were performed on time.

With the suspension on all non-urgent surgery due to the COVID threat now lifted, hospitals were working hard to reintroduce "business-as-usual" elective surgery while still maintaining COVID-19 preparedness.

"The recommencement of elective surgery will have a strong focus on clinical urgency and those patients who are overdue as a consequence of the impact of the pandemic," she said.

"... This includes developing plans with our private hospital partners to address the numbers of patients on waiting lists."

Ms Martin added that surgery lists were being closely monitored and any patient whose condition changed or deteriorated should speak to their treating clinician.

Meantime Ms Martin said there were some improvements in the district's emergency department performance.

"During this quarter, 69.7 per cent of patients started their treatment on time, which is better than the corresponding quarter by 1.2 percentage points," she said.

"88.2 per cent of patients had their care transferred from ambulance to ED staff within 30 minutes, a 2.6 percentage points improvement on the same quarter in 2019."

At Wollongong Hospital ED, transfer of care targets were also met, with 87.1 per cent of patients having their care transferred within 30 minutes - up 1.7 percentage points.

And at Shoalhaven ED, 66.2 per cent of patients started their treatment on time, an increase of 11.2 percentage points.

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