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 2019–20 (NPHED).
Highlights
In 2019–20:
- there were 695 public hospitals in Australia
- 26% of public hospitals (182) were located in Major cities, but the largest number of hospitals were located in Outer regional areas (210, or 30%)
- 67% of the average available beds were located in Major cities, and a further 19% in Inner regional areas
- while 16% of hospitals were located in either Remote or Very remote areas, representing 3% of available beds, the average available beds per 1,000 population was higher in remote areas—4.06 beds per 1,000 population compared with 2.28 beds in Major cities and 2.86 beds 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 2019–20:
- there were 138 LHNs, including 85 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 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 is a census figure that reflects the number of beds available each day, on average, over the collection period.
On average, in 2019–20:
- there were 62,700 available beds in public hospitals, with 2,200 (3.5%) of these in public psychiatric hospitals
- 87% of 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 7% 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 Western Australia, to 4.0 per 1,000 in the Northern Territory.
On average, between 2018–19 and 2019–20:
- available bed numbers fell by 0.7% from 63,100 to 62,700 average available beds
- available beds per 1,000 population fell by 2.4% per 1,000 population.
Remoteness area
In 2019–20:
- 67% of public hospital beds were located in Major cities (41,900 beds) and 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 4.7 beds per 1,000 population in Remote areas.