Admissions by surgical speciality

The surgical speciality describes the area of clinical expertise held by the doctor scheduled to perform the elective (planned) surgery. This section presents information on the type of elective surgery provided, by surgical speciality, in 2024–25 and changes over recent years.

Information on 11 categories of surgical speciality is presented. The ‘other’ category contains data for surgeons whose speciality was not one of the 11 specified categories. 

Explore the data

Explore the number of elective surgery admissions in 2024–25 and for recent years in the data visualisation below. 

In 2024–25, of the 791,000 admissions from elective surgery waiting lists that occurred nationally:

• 20% were for General surgery (on abdominal organs, including endocrine surgery and breast surgery), which was the most common surgical specialty 
• the next most common surgical specialty was Urological surgery (on organs of the urinary system such as bladder, urethra, and kidneys) and Ophthalmological surgery (on eyes and optic nerves); each accounted for 15% of admissions from waiting lists.

Changes over time

• Between 2023–24 and 2024–25, the surgical speciality area of Ophthalmology surgery had the largest increase in admissions (by 5.7%); between 2020–21 and 2024–25, this surgical specialty saw an average annual increase of 4.0%.

• Between 2023–24 and 2024–25, the surgical specialty area of Neurosurgery had the largest decrease in admissions (by 5.1%); between 2020–21 and 2024–25, Neurosurgery saw an average annual increase of 0.2%.