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HOSPITALS, BEDS AND CHAIRS

In 2010-11, there were 251 Acute private hospitals across Australia, down from 255 in 2009-10. The number of Psychiatric hospitals increased by four from 24 in 2009-10 to 28 in 2010-11.

About three quarters (74.9%) of Acute and psychiatric hospitals in Australia were located in metropolitan areas in 2010-11, with two-thirds (65.6%) located in Capital City Statistical Divisions. Queensland was the only state to have the majority of its Acute and psychiatric hospitals located outside the capital city. All states had the majority of their Acute and psychiatric hospitals based in metropolitan areas.

In 2010-11, 12.9 % of all Acute and psychiatric hospitals were co-located with a public hospital. New South Wales had the highest number of co-located hospitals (11) followed by Queensland and South Australia with 6 each.

The most common hospital size across Australia, as well as in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland was 51-100 beds. Nearly a third (32.6%) of the hospitals fell into this group. Queensland had fewer hospitals of this size than New South Wales and Victoria but had more hospitals with over 200 beds.

On average, there were 23,761 beds available in Acute hospitals in Australia during 2010-11, and 1,633 beds for Psychiatric hospitals over the same period. More than three quarters of these beds were in New South Wales, Victoria or Queensland in the Acute hospital sector (75.6%) and in the Psychiatric hospital sector (83.8%). There were 296 more Acute beds available in 2010-11 than in 2009-10, an increase of 1.3%, with New South Wales adding 122 beds and Victoria adding 44 beds over this period. The number of psychiatric hospital beds increased by 172 beds (11.8%) between 2009-10 and 2010-11, with Queensland adding 119 new beds..

The proportion of beds located in metropolitan areas varied across states from 75.4% in Queensland to 87.6% in Victoria. The proportion of beds located in the capital cities also varied from 54.4% in Queensland to 82.9% in Victoria.

There has been little change since 2009-10, when 54.6% of all beds in Queensland were in Brisbane and 82.5% of Victorian beds were in Melbourne.

TABLE 2.3: PRIVATE ACUTE AND PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS AND BEDS(a), States and territories—2010–11
		NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas., NT & ACT(b)	Australia
		Hospitals (no.)
Type of hospital
	Acute	77	72	48	np	np	np	251
	Psychiatric	9	7	6	np	np	np	28
	Total acute and psychiatric	86	79	54	30	21	9	279
Location
	Capital city statistical division	58	59	22	np	np	np	183
	Rest of state/territory	28	20	32	np	np	np	96
	Metropolitan (c)	70	62	32	np	16	np	209
	Rural (c)	16	17	22	np	np	np	70
Co-located with a public hospital		11	4	6	6	np	np	36
Hospital size (a)
	0–25 beds	14	14	9	9	3	-	49
	26–50 beds	17	20	8	np	5	np	58
	51–100 beds	37	21	16	8	4	5	91
	101–200 beds	13	19	14	5	np	np	56
	Over 200 beds	5	5	7	np	np	np	25
		Beds (no.)
Type of hospital
	Acute hospitals	6 205	6 180	5 580	np	np	np	23 761
	Psychiatric hospitals	499	449	420	np	np	np	1 633
	Total beds	6 704	6 629	6 000	1 911	3 138	1 012	25 394
Location
	Capital city statistical division	4 836	5 495	3 266	np	np	np	18 962
	Rest of state/territory	1 868	1 134	2 734	np	np	np	6 432
	Metropolitan (c)	5 728	5 806	4 526	np	np	np	21 563
	Rural (c)	976	823	1 474	np	np	np	3 831
		Proportion of all private acute and psychiatric hospitals (%)
Hospitals		30.8	28.3	19.4	10.8	7.5	3.2	100.0
Beds (a)		26.4	26.1	23.6	7.5	12.4	4.0	100.0
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated (a) Based on the number of available beds (average for the year). (b) Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have been aggregated to protect the confidentiality of the small number of hospitals in these states/territories. (c) Metropolitan and rural are two classifications included in the newly introduced Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). See Glossary for further information.

The majority of Acute and psychiatric hospitals operating for profit in Australia during 2010-11 were located in capital cities (71.3%), a higher proportion than for Religious or charitable Not for profit hospitals (60.0%) and Other Not for profit hospitals (48.0%). Nearly 85% of For profit Acute and psychiatric hospitals were located in metropolitan areas, compared with 64.4% of Religious or charitable Not for profit hospitals and 48.0% of Other Not for profit hospitals.

The most common number of beds in the For profit and Religious or charitable Not for profit hospitals was 51-100 beds, with 38% of For profit, and 28% of Religious or charitable Not for profit hospitals. Other Not for profit hospitals tended to be smaller.

The total number of beds in Acute and psychiatric hospitals has increased by 1.9% to 25,394 in 2010-11. The number of beds in the For profit sector increased by 2.6% to 13,512 beds, while the Religious or charitable Not for profit sector recorded a 0.2% decrease and the Other Not for profit hospitals recorded a 13.6% increase.

While a similar proportion of beds within each sector were located in the capital city (ranging from 72.8% of beds in For profit hospitals to 77.0% of beds in Religious or charitable Not for profit hospitals), there was greater disparity in the proportion of beds that were located in metropolitan areas, ranging from 88.4% of beds in For profit hospitals to 75.9% of beds in Other Not for profit hospitals. Around 15.6% of beds in For profit hospitals are located in metropolitan areas outside the capital city, while there are no Other Not for profit hospitals or beds located in metropolitan areas outside the capital city.

TABLE 2.4: PRIVATE ACUTE AND PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS, Australia—Sector(a)—2010–11
		For profit	Religious or charitable	Other (b)	Total
		Hospitals
New South Wales		69	np	np	86
Victoria		46	27	6	79
Queensland		27	24	3	54
South Australia		7	11	12	30
Western Australia		np	9	np	21
Tasmania, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (c)		np	np	np	9
Australia		164	90	25	279
Location
	Capital city statistical division	117	54	12	183
	Rest of state/territory	47	36	13	96
	Metropolitan (d)	139	58	12	209
	Rural (d)	25	32	13	70
Hospital size (e)
	0–25 beds	20	18	11	49
	26–50 beds	41	10	7	58
	51–100 beds	63	25	3	91
	101–200 beds	np	23	np	56
	Over 200 beds	np	14	np	25
		Beds (no.)
Location
	Capital city statistical division	9 832	8 187	943	18 962
	Rest of state/territory	3 680	2 452	300	6 432
	Metropolitan (d)	11 938	8 682	943	21 563
	Rural (d)	1 574	1 957	300	3 831
	Total beds (e)	13 512	10 639	1 243	25 394
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated (a) For definition of 'For Profit/not for profit sector', see Glossary. (b) Comprising bush nursing, community and memorial hospitals. (c) Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have been aggregated to protect the confidentiality of the small number of hospitals in these states/territories. (d) Metropolitan and rural are two classifications included in the newly introduced Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). See Glossary for further information. (e) Based on available beds (average for the year).