Public Hospital Report Card 2024

State-by-State Public Hospital Performance

National Overview

This section includes performance information for each state and territory. A summary of state and territory performance as per the four key metrics analysed at a national level is shown in table1. It represents data from 2022–23 compared to the previous year.

As shown in table 1, the performance for most states and territories declined in the past reporting period (❌ indicates a fall of more than 1 per cent, ✔️ indicates an improvement of more than 1 per cent). Table 2 compares each jurisdiction to the national average ( indicates above average performance, indicates below average performance).

Some key takeaways are:

  • New South Wales, despite being the overall best performing state, was one of two states (alongside Western Australia) to have a performance decline across all four performancemetrics.
  • The only jurisdictions to have more than one area of gain in performance were the Northern Territory and Tasmania. While positive, Tasmania still sits well below the national averages in most metrics.
  • 22 out of 32 (69 per cent) of the state-by-state performance measures saw a decline in the past reporting period.

Table 1: State and Territory performance 2022-23 compared to the previous year

Cat 3 ED on time 4 Hour Rule Median Surgery wait Cat 2 Surgery wait
New South Wales
Victoria ✔️
Queensland ✔️
Western Australia
South Australia = =
Tasmania ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
ACT ✔️
NT ✔️ ✔️ ✔️

Table 2: State and Territory performance 2022-23 compared to national average

Cat 3 ED on time 4 Hour Rule Median Surgery wait Cat 2 Surgery wait
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
Western Australia
South Australia =
Tasmania
ACT =
Northern Territory =