For each specialty of surgeon and intended procedure
Median waiting time
Data source
National Elective Surgery Waiting Times Data Collection
About the measure
This measure provides median waiting times. Data are presented by the area of clinical expertise held by the doctor performing the elective surgery (specialty of surgeon) and the procedure for which a patient has been placed on the elective surgery waiting list (intended procedure).
Elective surgery is planned surgery that can be booked in advance as a result of a specialist clinical assessment resulting in placement on an elective surgery waiting list. Once patients are assessed by a medical specialist and assigned an urgency category based on medical need, their surgery is booked and the details entered into the elective surgery waiting list (the waiting list).
The cohort for this measure includes all patients on the waiting list who were admitted for an awaited procedure, or admitted as an emergency patient for an awaited procedure during the relevant financial year.
Calculating the measure
‘Number of surgeries’ refers to the number of elective and emergency admissions from public hospital elective surgery waiting lists, by specialty of surgeon and intended procedure.
The median waiting time is the number of days within which half of the patients (50%) were admitted from the waiting list for the awaited procedure. The calculation of waiting times excludes: any days the patient was waiting with a less urgent elective surgery category than their urgency category at removal, and people who were transferred to another hospital’s elective surgery waiting list, were treated elsewhere but not on behalf of the hospital, were not contactable, died prior to receiving their surgery, or declined surgery.
Data are presented for the period in which the patient was admitted.
Only surgery data which met certain criteria are included in the calculation. The criteria for calculating and presenting results are:
- Valid dates for: addition to waiting list, admission as an emergency or elective patient for awaited procedure
- A valid urgency category
- 10 or more surgeries in the category (in the denominator).
Detailed specifications
Data are prepared according to the National Healthcare Agreement (NHA) indicator PI 20a–Waiting times for elective surgery: waiting times in days. Data are reported on this website for the Performance and Accountability Framework (PAF) indicator Elective surgery patient waiting times by urgency category. The PAF indicator has the same definition as the NHA indicator, and is reported at hospital level and peer group level. Peer group, state and national-level data are available in Elective surgery waiting times 2017–18: Australian hospital statistics (AIHW, 2018).
View the data specification on Australia’s metadata online:
Specification External link, opens in a new window.
The percentage of patients who waited longer than 365 days
Data source
National Elective Surgery Waiting Times Data Collection
About the measure
This measure identifies the percentage of patients who waited longer than 365 days for their surgery by specialty of surgeon and intended procedure.
The cohort for this measure includes all patients on the waiting list who were admitted for an awaited procedure, or admitted as an emergency patient for an awaited procedure during the relevant financial year.
Calculating the measure
‘Number of surgeries’ refers to the total number of elective and emergency admissions from public hospital elective surgery waiting lists, by specialty of surgeon and intended procedure.
The percentage of patients who waited longer than 365 days for their surgery is calculated as the number of patients who were on the waiting list longer than 365 days before being admitted for their awaited procedure, divided by the total number of patients admitted for their awaited procedure in the category.
The calculation of waiting times excludes: any days the patient was waiting with a less urgent elective surgery category than their urgency category at removal, and people who were transferred to another hospital’s elective surgery waiting list, were treated elsewhere but not on behalf of the hospital, were not contactable, died prior to receiving their surgery, or declined surgery.
Data are presented for the period in which the patient was admitted.
Only surgery data which met certain criteria are included in the calculation. The criteria for calculating and presenting results are:
- Valid dates for: addition to waiting list, admission as an emergency or elective patient for awaited procedure
- A valid urgency category
- 50 or more surgeries in the category (in the denominator).