Eye, ear, nose and throat patients face the longest waits for elective surgery, as overall waiting times rise with the growth in admissions, the latest national figures reveal.
Some 711,854 patients were admitted to public hospitals from wait lists in 2015-2016, showed public hospital data from each state and territory except the ACT.
Half of all patients nationally were admitted within 37 days, two days more than the median wait time the previous year, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported Thursday.
Some 90 per cent of elective surgery patients were admitted within 260 days, 10 days more than 2011- 2012.
The median wait time for principal referral and women's and children's hospitals increased from 29 days to 32 days between 2014-2015 and 2015-2016.
But the institute said the data was proof that wait times had managed to hold steady as public hospitals responded to a growing number of patients, which had risen by 1.7 per cent on average every year since 2011-2012, after adjusting for the increase in the number of hospitals included in the data.
And the proportion of patients who waited more than a year to be admitted had improved, from 2.7 per cent in 2014-2015 to 1.8 per cent in 2015-2016.
The surgeries with the best and worst wait times
Ophthalmology patients had the longest median wait time for surgery (78 days) followed by ear, nose and throat surgery (74 days), and orthopaedic surgery (67 days).
Patients waiting for septoplasty – repairing a deviated septum – spent the longest time on wait lists, with a median time of 209 days. Cataract extraction was the most common surgical procedure, with 67,755 admissions from public hospital wait lists in 2015-2016.
Ear, nose and throat, and orthopaedic surgeries also had the highest proportion of patients waiting more than a year to be admitted (4.5 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively).
Cardiothoracic surgeries had the shortest median wait times of 17 days. Patients needing a coronary artery bypass graft spent the least amount of time on wait lists than any other procedure, with a median wait time of 13 days.
Orthopaedic surgery, including hip and knee replacement, accounted for 23 per cent of all elective surgeries.
How the states compare
NSW alone accounted for almost 31 per cent of the total elective surgery admissions reported by each state and territory except the ACT.
The most populous state recorded an overall increase in median wait times of 49 to 55 days since 2011-2012, as did South Australia (34 to 40 days). Tasmania almost doubled its median wait time from 38 to 72 days.
Queensland had the shortest median wait time of 29 days. Victorian wait times dropped from 36 to 30 days, and Northern Territory wait times fell from 39 to 29 days.
NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner said: "The AIHW annual report Australian Hospital Statistics 2015-16: Elective Surgery Waiting Times report is a very pleasing result, which demonstrates our commitment to ensuring NSW patients have access to high-quality elective surgical services in the public hospital system".
Indigenous Australians elective surgery delays
The report confirmed the gaping disparity in health provisions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, with Indigenous Australians waiting on average six days longer for elective surgery, and more likely to sit on a wait list for more than a year than their non-Indigenous counterparts.
The data presented in the AIHW report does not include the time patients waited for an initial appointment with a specialist from the time they were referred by their GP.
