Hospitals
Public hospitals providing admitted patient care
In 2024–25, 674 public hospitals in Australia provided admitted patient care services.
Hospitals are grouped by the type of service provided. In 2024–25:
- 31 Principal referral hospitals accounted for the highest proportion of public hospital hospitalisations (37%, 2.8 million hospitalisations) and public hospital patient days (37%, 8.8 million patient days)
- 63 Public acute group A hospitals accounted for a further 35% of hospitalisations and 33% of patient days
- 109 Very small hospitals accounted for less than 0.5% of both hospitalisations and patient days, with an average length of stay of 8.1 days, longer than the average length of stay in Principal referral hospitals (3.1 days)
- 32 Subacute and non-acute hospitals accounted for 1.0% of hospitalisations and 3.5% of patient days, with an average length of stay of 11.3 days.
Data on public hospitals providing admitted patient care in Australia can be found in Admitted patient care 2024–25: How much activity was there? [XLSX 122kB]. These data are sourced from the National Hospital Morbidity database.
Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary.
More information, appendices and caveat information are available in the About the data section.
Public hospitals providing admitted patient care
The numbers of public and private hospitals in Australia can vary over time, reflecting the opening or closing of hospitals, the reclassification of hospitals as non‑hospital facilities (or vice-versa) and the amalgamation of existing hospitals.
The number of hospitals reported can be affected by variations in administrative and/or reporting arrangements in each state or territory and is not necessarily a measure of the number of physical hospital buildings or campuses.
This section presents information on the number of public hospitals reporting activity to the National Hospitals Morbidity Database (NHMD) 2024–25. The hospitals providing admitted patient care services are a smaller group of hospitals compared to the total number of public hospitals in Australia, published in the National Public Hospital Establishments Database.
Public hospitals peer groups
Hospital type (peer group) is a classification of public hospitals into groups of similar hospitals by the types of services provided.
Various types of public hospitals provide care to admitted patients including:
- Principal referral hospitals
- Public acute group A hospitals
- Very small hospitals, and
- Subacute and non-acute hospitals.