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 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, reported by jurisdictions in the National Public Hospital Establishments Database 2020–21 (NPHED).
Highlights
In 2020–21:
- 697 public hospitals were reported to the NPHED
- 1 in 3 (30%) were located in Outer regional areas (210) and 1 in 4 (26%) public hospitals (184) were located in Major cities
- 7 in 10 (67%) of the average available beds were located in Major cities, and a further 2 in 10 (19%) in Inner regional areas
- the number of average available beds was higher in remote areas (4.0 beds per 1,000 population) compared with 2.3 in Major cities and 2.9 in regional areas.
Local hospital networks for public hospitals
Local hospital networks (LHNs) directly manage single or small groups of public hospital services and their budgets, and are directly responsible for hospital performance. 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 2020–21:
- there were 134 LHNs, including 81 in Victoria, and 1 each in Tasmania and the Australian Capital 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 public 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 hospitals provide services for patients who usually reside in other areas of the state or territory, or in other jurisdictions. 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 2020–21:
- 63,300 beds were available in public hospitals, with 2,000 (3.2%) of these in public psychiatric hospitals
- just under 9 in 10 (86%) beds in Public hospitals (other than psychiatric) were available for overnight stay patients
- the proportion of beds available for same-day patients in Public hospitals (other than psychiatric) ranged from 6% in the Australian Capital Territory to 26% in the Northern Territory
- available beds per 1,000 population in Public hospitals (other than psychiatric) ranged from 2.2 per 1,000 in Victoria, to 4.4 per 1,000 in the Northern Territory.
On average, between 2019–20 and 2020–21:
- available bed numbers increased by 1.2% — from 62,700 to 63,300 average available beds
- but the rate of available beds per 1,000 population fell by 0.2% per 1,000 population (to 2.5 per 1,000 population).
Remoteness area
In 2020–21:
- 7 in 10 (67%) average available public hospital beds were located in Major cities (42,400 beds) and 1 in 5 (19%) were located in Inner regional areas (12,000 beds)
- the number of public hospital beds per 1,000 population ranged from 2.3 beds per 1,000 population in Major cities to 4.8 beds per 1,000 population in Remote areas.