The Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) holds the National Hospital Cost Data Collection (NHCDC). This collection matches hospital patient-level activity data with the costs incurred by the hospital in administering care for the patient.
In 2023–24, among the 772 public hospitals that reported data to IHACPA, 313 public hospitals (41%) provided admitted patient palliative care data, with a total hospital cost of $666.7 million on admitted palliative care. This represents 16% of all subacute care costs ($4.2 billion) and 1.0% of total cost ($65.5 billion) in these reporting hospitals.
Of the $666.7 million spent on admitted palliative care:
- salaries and wages accounted for 65% of the total costs, with nursing salaries and wages accounting for the largest proportion (32%)
- almost 9 in 10 (89%) were for clinical services
- direct clinical costs (nursing, medical and clinical supplies) accounted for the largest share of total costs (60%), with 32% for nursing, 15% for medical and 13% for clinical supplies
- most of the expenditure was funded through the Health Service Budget, accounting for 79% of the total, followed by private health insurance, which contributed 18%.
Sociodemographic and regional characteristics
In 2023–24 for expenditure on admitted patient palliative care:
- people aged 65 years and over accounted for 76% of expenditure
- people living in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas accounted for a higher share of expenditure (26%) compared with people in the least disadvantaged areas (14%)
There were regional variations in expenditure which generally aligned with population distributions across states and territories. Major cities accounted for 65% of expenditure compared to just 2.2% in remote and very remote areas.
Note, that regional differences may be influenced by variations in hospital admission policies, practices, and service types.
Trends
Since 2013–14, the total expenditure on admitted patient palliative care has increased at an average annual rate of 4.3% in real terms. After a slight decrease in 2019–20, the total expenditure on admitted patient palliative care increased at an average annual rate of 4.8% (from $525.5 million to $666.7 million, in real terms). The number of reporting hospitals has also increased form 225 in 2019–20 to 313 in 2023–24.
When accounting for the number of reporting hospitals each year, average expenditure per hospital (in real terms) has remained similar between 2019–20 and 2023–24 (between $2.0 million - $2.3 million).
