weeks (median) - Source frequency: annual · Methodology · Corrections
Australia's elective surgery waiting list was 6.4 weeks (median) as of January 2025. The long-term trend is falling, though the recent 36-month direction is improving. Median waiting time in weeks from listing to admission for elective (planned) surgery in public hospitals. Elective surgery wait times directly affect quality of life — patients waiting for hip replacements, cataract surgery, or cardiac procedures experience ongoing pain, disability, and anxiety. Data is sourced from AIHW Australian Hospital Statistics — Elective Surgery Waiting Times and updated annually.
Median waiting time in weeks from listing to admission for elective (planned) surgery in public hospitals.
Elective surgery wait times directly affect quality of life — patients waiting for hip replacements, cataract surgery, or cardiac procedures experience ongoing pain, disability, and anxiety.
Lower is better
Source: AIHW Australian Hospital Statistics — Elective Surgery Waiting Times
GREEN = favourable trend within acceptable band of baseline. AMBER = flat or mild change. RED = unfavourable trend beyond threshold.
This data is sourced programmatically from official statistical APIs and data feeds (AIHW Australian Hospital Statistics — Elective Surgery Waiting Times), updated annually. The source link above points to the human-readable publication page, which presents the same underlying data in a different format (e.g. Excel workbook, PDF release). Our pipeline fetches the machine-readable version automatically and converts it to the standardised format shown here.
See all sources and methodology on the data sources page.
