Canberra Health Services reports on elective surgery waiting lists for operational management purposes.
The latest report is below. Updated reports are published approximately once per fortnight. Report content is subject to change.
The report is distinct from the ACT Public Health Services Quarterly Performance Report. Each report has different reporting purposes. Any analysis between these and other reports should recognise the variances that can occur due to diverse data sources and reporting contexts.
Canberra Health Services continues to review waitlist data.
Notes
- National Elective Surgery Urgency Category Guidelines:
- Category 1: Procedures that are clinically indicated within 30 days
- Category 2: Procedures that are clinically indicated within 90 days
- Category 3: Procedures that are clinically indicated within 365 days.
- Ready for Care (RFC): Patients on the waitlist who are ready for surgery.
- Not Ready for Care (NRFC): Patients on the waitlist who are not ready for admission to hospital for surgery. This can be due to clinical or personal reasons.
- Overdue: number and percentage of cases on the waitlist that are reporting as waiting longer than the clinically recommended time for surgery, according to the assigned urgency category.
- Patients who have surgery as public patients in private hospitals are not removed from the list until information is received from the private provider that their surgery has been performed.
- There are known data quality issues for Elective Surgery Waiting List in DHR which have not been reviewed.
- Numbers will differ from output from HCSD and National Reporting due to report timing, no data quality assurance, and retrospective applied changes to urgency category.
Elective Surgery waitlist report
Data last refreshed: 24 November 2025
Category 1 (<30 days)
| Speciality | Total RFC | Total Overdue RFC | % Overdue RFC | Total NRFC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardiac Surgery | 29 | 5 | 17% | <5 |
| General Surgery | 57 | <5 | N/A | 10 |
| Gynaecological Oncology | 15 | 0 | 0% | <5 |
| Gynaecology | 29 | <5 | N/A | 9 |
| Neurosurgery | 8 | 0 | 0% | <5 |
| Ophthalmology | 8 | <5 | N/A | <5 |
| Oral-Maxillofacial Surgery | 18 | 0 | 0% | 0 |
| Orthopaedic Surgery | 12 | 0 | 0% | <5 |
| Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery | 12 | <5 | N/A | 0 |
| Paediatric Surgery | <5 | 0 | N/A | <5 |
| Plastic Surgery | 73 | <5 | N/A | 10 |
| Urology | 181 | 15 | 8% | 102 |
| Vascular | 93 | 27 | 29% | 16 |
| Total | 535 | 47 | 9% | 147 |
Category 2 (<90 days)
| Speciality | Total RFC | Total Overdue RFC | % Overdue RFC | Total NRFC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardiac Surgery | 14 | 10 | 71% | 0 |
| General Surgery | 149 | 33 | 22% | 28 |
| Gynaecological Oncology | 23 | 6 | 26% | <5 |
| Gynaecology | 188 | 48 | 26% | 21 |
| Neurosurgery | 82 | 24 | 29% | 12 |
| Ophthalmology | 102 | 25 | 25% | 15 |
| Oral-Maxillofacial Surgery | 77 | 15 | 19% | 10 |
| Orthopaedic Surgery | 457 | 260 | 57% | 57 |
| Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery | 96 | 29 | 30% | 6 |
| Paediatric Surgery | 106 | 11 | 10% | 7 |
| Plastic Surgery | 114 | 49 | 43% | 14 |
| Urology | 131 | 13 | 10% | 130 |
| Vascular | 98 | 74 | 76% | 8 |
| Total | 1637 | 597 | 36% | 308 |
Category 3 (<365 days)
| Speciality | Total RFC | Total Overdue RFC | % Overdue RFC | Total NRFC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardiac Surgery | <5 | <5 | N/A | 0 |
| General Surgery | 366 | <5 | N/A | 45 |
| Gynaecological Oncology | 7 | 0 | 0% | <5 |
| Gynaecology | 294 | 53 | 18% | 19 |
| Neurosurgery | 150 | 24 | 16% | 19 |
| Ophthalmology | 1053 | 73 | 7% | 529 |
| Oral-Maxillofacial Surgery | 49 | 13 | 27% | 7 |
| Orthopaedic Surgery | 1453 | 575 | 40% | 161 |
| Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery | 719 | 355 | 49% | 25 |
| Paediatric Surgery | 62 | <5 | N/A | <5 |
| Plastic Surgery | 115 | 48 | 42% | <5 |
| Urology | 72 | 0 | 0% | 176 |
| Vascular | 187 | 92 | 49% | 7 |
| Total | 4527 | 1233 | 27% | 988 |
All categories' summary
| Total RFC | Total Overdue RFC | % Overdue RFC | Total NRFC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6699 | 1877 | 28% | 1443 |