Key messages
- Policies and resources are available to enhance Victoria’s surgical services.
- The Elective surgery access policy helps hospital and health services to manage elective surgery patients.
- The Elective Surgery Access Service provides a system for transferring patients from services that are unable to treat them, to services that can.
- An information brochure is available to give to patients.
Policies and resources are available to guide and assist health services, hospitals and clinicians to improve Victoria’s surgical services
Elective surgery access policy
Victoria's Elective surgery access policy (ESAP) 2015 provides business rules around the management of access to elective surgery services in Victorian public health services.
Appendices
Appendix 1: Aesthetic procedures and indications for surgery in Victorian public health services
Appendix 2: Victorian recommended guide on the assignment of clinical urgency categories
Appendix 3: Elective surgery pathway and timeframes
Appendix 4: Summary of appropriate notification methods
National elective surgery urgency categorisation guideline - April 2015
Referring specialist medical practitioners should consult the national categorisation document for guidance about procedures not listed in the Victorian recommended guide on the assignment of clinical urgency categories.
National elective surgery urgency categorisation guideline - April 2015
Templates for written communication with patients
The following plain language templates are available to assist health services to implement the policy and communicate with patients:
Understanding the elective surgery waiting list
You are now on the elective surgery waiting list and ready for surgery
You are now on the elective surgery waiting list but are not ready for surgery for clinical reasons
You are now on the elective surgery waiting list but are not ready for surgery for personal reasons
We have changed the clinical urgency category for your elective surgery
We have scheduled your elective surgery
We have had to reschedule your surgery
We have had to postpone your surgery
We have removed your name from the elective surgery waiting list
We are updating our records for the elective surgery waiting list
Watters Review
Former Royal Australasian College of Surgeons President, Professor David Watters AM OBE has handed down his review on private practice arrangements in our public health services. Importantly, Professor Watters found no evidence of private patients being consistently prioritised over public patients in Victorian public health services.
The department is grateful to Professor Watters and the health services that participated in the review. The Executive Summary of the Watters Review is publicly available here.
Release of the Watters Review fulfils the Victorian Government’s commitment to the recommendation in the Victorian Auditor General’s report into Managing Private Medical Practice in Public for the Department of Health to ‘evaluate private practice arrangements to measure and monitor the benefits and share results with health services to inform their practice’.
Best Care Policy
During the first wave of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Victoria, all non-urgent elective surgery was temporarily suspended. This decision was made so that health services could conserve personal protective equipment, minimise the risk of infection to staff and patients, and ensure intensive care unit capacity for COVID-19 care.
During this period, Safer Care Victoria partnered with the Victorian Perioperative Consultative Council to review the clinical evidence for surgical procedures – ensuring that scarce capacity was prioritised towards the patients that needed it most.
A list of specific surgical procedures was identified as having limited evidence of clinical benefit for patients, except when specific clinical indications exist. The list is available on the Safer Care Victoria .
A policy was issued by the Department of Health requiring these procedures, from 22 June 2020, to only be performed in circumstances where the procedure is indicated (as outlined in the Best Care guidance) or for whom an exemption for the procedure has been sought and approved at a local health service level. You can view the Best care policy here.
Elective Surgery Access Service
The Elective Surgery Access Service (ESAS) provides a streamlined system for transferring elective surgery patients from health services that are unable to treat them within clinically appropriate timeframes, to health services with the capacity to offer rapid treatment.
Elective Surgery Access Service business rules should be read in conjunction with Elective surgery access policy 2015.
Patient brochure
A brochure called What do I need to know about my elective surgery? has been prepared to provide patients with information about elective surgery.
Reviewed 26 November 2021