Waiting times overview

The length of time patients wait for admission from elective surgery waiting lists for their planned surgery is a measure of the accessibility of elective surgery. Waiting times measure the amount of time elapsed from a patient being ready for surgery to their admission for the procedure. Access to elective surgery is affected by demand for elective surgery, the availability of hospital staff and other resources, clinical factors such as how urgently the surgery is required, and patient factors such as where they live.

Waiting times data provides information about the length of time waited by patients on public hospital elective surgery waiting lists before being admitted for surgery. 

Explore the data

Explore waiting times data for elective surgery by hospital peer group and clinical urgency category of the surgery for 2024–25 and other recent years in the data visualisation below.

Nationally, in 2024–25:

• the overall time within which 50% of patients were admitted (the median waiting time) was 45 days, and the time within which 90% of patients were admitted was 329 days
• 6.0% of patients waited more than 365 days for their surgery
• the 50th percentile (median) waiting time for patients admitted from waiting lists to Principal referral and Women’s and children’s hospitals (35 days) was shorter than for smaller hospitals categorised as Public acute group A hospitals and Public acute group B hospitals (49 days and 63 days, respectively).

Changes over time

50th percentile (median) waiting time

Between 2023–24 and 2024–25, the 50th percentile waiting time:

• decreased overall from 46 days to 45 days
• decreased for patients admitted to Principal referral and Women’s and children’s hospitals and Other hospitals (hospitals not included in the specified peer groups)
• increased in most states/territories except Victoria and Western Australia, which had decreased waiting times.

Between 2020–21 and 2024–25, the 50th percentile waiting time:

• decreased from 48 days to 45 days
• decreased for all public hospital peer groups.

90th percentile waiting time

Between 2023–24 and 2024–25, the 90th percentile waiting time:

• overall stayed the same at 329 days 
• decreased for all public hospital peer groups except Public acute group B hospitals, which increased. 
• increased for four states/territories, while the remaining four had decreases – with Victoria (76 days lower) and Tasmania (27 days lower) having the sharpest declines.

Between 2020–21 and 2024–25, the 90th percentile waiting time:

• decreased overall from 348 days to 329 days
• decreased for all public hospital peer groups.

Patients who waited more than 365 days 

Between 2023–24 and 2024–25, the proportion of patients who waited more than 365 days to be admitted decreased from 6.4% to 6.0%. In 2020–21 the proportion of people who waited more than 365 days to be admitted was 7.6%.

Waiting times by clinical urgency category

When a patient is placed on a public hospital elective surgery waiting list, a clinical assessment is made to determine the urgency with which they require elective surgery (the clinically recommended time). The proportion of patients seen within the recommended time is the percentage of patients who were admitted for surgery within the clinically recommended time as defined by their clinical urgency category.

The ‘overdue wait’ is the amount of time spent waiting while overdue – that is, after 30, 90, or 365 days for clinical urgency categories 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The average overdue wait time (in days) is calculated for patients who were still waiting for their elective surgery as of 30 June 2025, who were ready for care, and who had waited beyond the recommended time.