Public hospitals and beds

The number 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 jurisdictional variations in administrative and/or reporting arrangements and is not necessarily a measure of the number of physical hospital buildings or campuses.

This section reports on the number of public hospitals in Australia, based on data provided by states and territories as the entities involved in operating and managing public hospitals.

In 2023–24:

• there were 704 public hospitals across Australia
• 29% (or 203) public hospitals were located in Outer regional areas and 28% (or 195) were located in Major cities.

Local hospital networks for public hospitals

Local hospital networks (LHNs) directly manage single or small groups of public hospital services and their budgets. They are defined as those entities recognised as LHNs by the relevant state or territory health authority.

LHNs vary greatly in location, size and in the types of hospitals that they include. LHNs may include both public and private hospitals. The information presented below relates to public hospitals only.

In 2023–24:

• there were 127 LHNs, including 75 in Victoria, and 1 each in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory
• many LHNs in Victoria consist of a single public hospital. Other networks might consist of a Principal referral or Public acute group A hospital and a range of smaller and/or more specialised hospitals.

Availability of hospital beds

Information about the availability of hospital beds in relation to the population provides some information about the accessibility of hospital services. However, the available data does not take account of the extent to which hospital patients receive services via different modes of care (such as virtual care or ‘hospital in the home’ care models). 

The patterns of bed availability across regions may also reflect the availability of other health-care services and patterns of disease and injury.

Available beds

‘Average available beds’ reflects the number of beds available each day, on average, over the collection period.

On average, in 2023–24:

• there were 67,300 available beds in public hospitals across Australia – a rate of 2.5 beds per 1,000 population
• 1,600 (2.4%) of these beds were in public psychiatric hospitals, and 56,600 (84%) of beds in Public hospitals (other than psychiatric) were available for overnight stay patients
• 69% (or 46,200) of available beds were located in Major cities, and 19% (or 12,500) were in Inner regional areas
• the number of average available beds per 1,000 people was highest in Remote areas (4.0 beds per 1,000 population) and lowest in Major cities to (2.4 beds).

Between 2022–23 and 2023–24:

• the number of average available beds increased by 3.4% – from 65,100 to 67,300
• the number of available beds per 1,000 people increased slightly from 2.50 to 2.52 per 1,000 population.