If you arrive at an emergency department (ED) today, you’ll be triaged. That’s a quick judgement about how urgently you need care. Those in crisis are seen quickly, while others may wait hours.

A decade ago, three-quarters (74%) of emergency patients in public hospitals were seen within the clinically recommended time by a nurse, doctor or other health professional after arrival. Now, only two-thirds (67%) of patients are seen on time.

The same pattern shows up in elective surgery. Ten years ago, the median wait was around 35 days between a doctor deciding you need surgery and you having the operation. Today, it’s 45 days. Some wait over a year.

Longer wait times reflect the balance between demand for services, the supply of staff, beds and theatre time, and how efficiently hospitals coordinate care and discharge patients through the system.

Let’s look at who waits longest.

Every patient arriving at an ED is assigned a triage category based on urgency:

On-time performance mostly slipped over the past decade, although there’s been a small rebound since 2023–24, after a low the year before.

But median waiting times have changed little over the same timeframe and remain steady at 18 minutes. This is partly because there have been proportionally more patients in the “emergency” category and fewer classified as “non-urgent”.

However, most people who come to EDs aren’t in life-threatening situations. Last year, there were 9.1 million presentations. Only 0.96% were resuscitation cases (86,831). Nearly........

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