Waiting list activity

After a specialist clinical assessment, the treating doctor places the patient on an elective surgery waiting list for their planned surgery. Patients can be removed from a waiting list for a range of reasons – including because they were admitted for their awaited procedure, the surgery was no longer required, they were treated elsewhere, or they were unable to be contacted or had died. 

Elective surgery activity is measured by the number of additions to and removals from public hospital elective surgery waiting lists, and the number of patients admitted for their awaited procedure. 

Explore the data

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

Additions to elective surgery waiting lists

In 2024–25, 940,000 patients were added to elective surgery waiting lists in Australia. This was a 3.1% increase in the number of patients added to waiting lists in 2023–24, and an average annual increase of 1.3% in additions to waiting lists since 2020–21.

Removals from elective surgery waiting lists

Nationally, in 2024–25:

• 952,000 patients were removed from public hospital elective surgery waiting lists for any reason – an increase of 2.3% compared with 2023–24
• most patients removed from waiting lists (83%) were admitted for their intended procedure
• 17% were removed from waiting lists for other reasons including:
  • 84,500 patients removed as their surgery was no longer required
  • 36,500 patients removed as they were transferred to another waiting list
  • 24,500 patients removed as they were treated elsewhere
  • 16,500 patients removed for other or unknown reasons (including where the person died).

Admissions from elective surgery waiting lists

Nationally in 2024–25:

• there were 791,000 admissions from public hospital elective surgery waiting lists – 99% of which were elective admissions for the awaited procedure and 0.6% of which were emergency admissions because the patient’s condition deteriorated or for other reasons
• of the 791,000 admissions, 255,000 (32%) were Category 1 (clinically indicated within 30 days), 308,000 (39%) were Category 2 (clinically indicated within 90 days), and 227,000 (29%) were Category 3 (clinically indicated within 365 days)
• Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals and Public acute group A hospitals accounted for nearly three‑quarters of all admissions from elective surgery waiting lists (39% and 33%, respectively)
• patients in 4.8% of admissions from public hospital elective surgery waiting lists were identified as being First Nations people.

In 2024–25, admissions from elective surgery waiting lists increased by 1.6% compared with 2023–24 (778,000 admissions), and have increased from 712,000 admissions in 2015–16.

Nationally, the rate of admission from an elective surgery waiting list was 29.1 per 1,000 population. This was very similar to the rate seen in 2023–24 when there were 29.2 admissions per 1,000 population. The rate of admissions per 1,000 population in 2024–25 varied from 39.2 in Tasmania to 24.6 in the Northern Territory.