Victorian Health Services Performance

Elective surgery

This section of the website provides you with information about treatment times for elective surgery at individual hospitals. You and your doctor can use this information to give you an idea of the likely time to access surgery. It will help you to make informed decisions and allow your doctor to better plan the care he or she gives you.

Most elective surgery in Victoria is categorised under ten specialities. The times for accessing 27 of the most commonly performed procedures in these specialties are available on this website.

The website also contains information on:

• Clinical urgency categories
• Targets set for timely treatment of elective surgery patients
• Types of elective surgery data
• Time to treatment
• Cancellation or postponement of elective surgery
• Frequently asked questions

You can also search individual hospitals and view their performance on a range of elective surgery measures.

Elective Surgery Waiting List Reduction Plan

As part of the Australian Government's Elective Surgery Waiting List Reduction Plan, the Department of Health has expanded the level of detail available on elective surgery waiting times. More information is now available on hospital level throughput and waiting list information.

Elective Surgery Access Policy

This Elective Surgery Access Policy sets out expectations and standards for health services in managing elective surgery lists. The aim of the policy is to ensure that Victorians waiting for surgery receive adequate communication about their surgery, are properly managed while waiting for surgery and can expect a consistent experience no matter where they are listed for surgery.

Explaining elective surgery data

A number of factors are relevant when explaining elective surgery data:

Clinical urgency categories

Hospitals use urgency categories to schedule surgery to make sure that patients with the greatest need are treated first. Each patient's clinical urgency is determined by their treating specialist.

Targets set for timely treatment of elective surgery patients

Targets aim to ensure that public hospitals are meeting the needs of elective surgery patients while still responding to increases in demand for emergency care. Hospital achievement against targets for urgent and semi-urgent elective surgery patients is monitored.

Three urgency categories are used throughout Australia:

Clinical urgency categories	National standards - desirable treatment times	Targets
1 Urgent Has the potential to deteriorate quickly to the point it may become an emergency	Admission within 30 days	100 per cent seen within desirable time
2 Semi-urgent Causes some pain, dysfunction or disability Unlikely to deteriorate quickly Unlikely to become an emergency	Admission within 90 days	80 per cent seen within desirable time
3 Non-urgent Causes minimal or no pain, dysfunction or disability Unlikely to deteriorate quickly Unlikely to become an emergency	Admission some time in the future	90 per cent seen within desirable time

Time to treatment

This website will provide you with the time taken for other patients to have similar surgery. The time is the median, that is, the point at which half of the patients had been treated and half had not.

Elective surgery lists

You can view data on patients whose treatment has been completed on this website.

This data is most valuable for assessing hospital performance and is used nationally to indicate performance by all Australian States and Territories.

Cancellation or postponement of elective surgery

You, your hospital or your treating specialist can cancel or postpone surgery for different reasons. For more information on postponement of surgery, go to Frequently Asked Questions - Are you ready for surgery?