Queensland Children's Hospital Planned surgery

Planned surgery

Queensland Health provides free access to specialist consultations and surgeries that can be planned and booked in advance. This page provides information about the demand for planned surgeries. Following an initial assessment by a specialist, it may be determined that a patient required a planned surgical procedure based on the patient's symptoms and health condition. Patients may be referred for a specialist assessment through their General Practitioner (GP).

Planned surgery activity summary

Planned surgeries (also called elective surgeries) are surgeries that can be booked in advance. Patients are referred to specialists through their GP for a clinical assessment based on their symptoms and health condition, and a decision may be made for the patient to be placed on a waiting list for planned surgery. Some patients will receive planned surgery through the Surgery Connect program, which is a Queensland Health initiative that provides an opportunity to treat selected public patients in a private hospital.

At a glance

Demand for planned surgery

Waiting lists for planned surgery

Surgeries are classified into groups known as ‘specialties’ according to the area of the body being treated or the branch of medicine that a surgeon specialises in. Patients are referred by their GP to be assessed clinically by a surgeon or specialist, who will determine if a patient requires surgery. The specialist will then assign the patient an urgency category (1 to 3), where 1 is most urgent and 3 is least urgent and will place the patient on a waiting list.

Waiting lists are managed centrally and vary due to the demand for services and hospital resourcing. The waiting time for planned surgery is calculated as the time between the date the patient was placed on the waiting list and the date the patient was removed from the waiting list for their planned surgery, excluding any periods the patient was not ready for care and any periods that the patient was waiting at a less urgent category than their assigned category at the date of surgery.

Planned surgeries performed

When a GP refers a patient for a specialist clinical assessment, the patient is assigned an urgency category (1 to 3), where 1 is most urgent and 3 is least urgent, based on the nature of their symptoms or underlying condition. Following the assessment and if surgery is required, the specialist will place the patient onto a waiting list for surgery and assign the same, or different, urgency category. When a patient is treated, they are removed from the planned surgery waiting list. To have surgery in a public Queensland hospital, a patient must be:

• assessed by a medical specialist as being able to benefit from surgery
• willing to consent to surgery
• ready for surgery.

Planned surgery performance

This page provides insights into the operational performance of planned surgeries, including the number of people on the waiting list, expected waiting times and adherence to clinical care recommendations.

Waiting time to access planned surgeries

Patients waiting for planned surgeries may experience wait times before receiving their surgery. The wait times depend on the demand for each speciality, hospital resourcing, and the urgency of the patient's symptoms or health condition.

Waiting list performance

The time a patient spends on a waiting list for a planned surgery is guided by three urgency categories, which provide an indication of the clinically recommended timeframes for a patient to receive surgery.

In addition to being assigned an urgency category, a patient will also be classified as either ready, or not ready for surgery. A patient who is ‘not ready for surgery’ is one someone who is not clinically ready or chooses to not proceed with their surgery at the time the data was captured.

Queensland Health report the percentage of patients who were seen in the recommended time for their urgency category. The higher the percentage, the better the performance. In some specialties there are a higher number of patients waiting to receive their planned surgery, which may result in patients waiting longer than clinically recommended.

Patients treated in turn

The ‘Treated in Turn’ model of care advocates for patients in each urgency category being treated in the same order that they are placed on the waiting list for planned surgery. This aims to ensure equitable access to planned surgery and increase predictability of the time that patients wait.

There are several reasons why a patient may not be treated in turn. Not all patients allocated an urgency category (1-3) are waiting for the same procedure or have the same medical needs. Additionally, there may be varying levels of urgency within the same category and a patient's medical urgency may change during their time on the waitlist.

Queensland Health aims to balance clinical need with equity of access by setting a target of a minimum of 60% of category 2 and 3 patients receive treatment in waiting time order.