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PRIVATE HEALTH ESTABLISHMENTS COLLECTION

This publication presents details from the 2012-13 Private Health Establishments Collection (PHEC). It is the only comprehensive statistical collection conducted in Australia focusing on the private hospital sector. The collection covers:

• private acute and psychiatric hospitals in Australia, licensed by state and territory health authorities, and
• day hospital facilities (day surgeries) approved by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing for the purpose of health insurance benefits, including those registered with their respective state health authority.

• facilities (beds available, special units),
• activities (patient throughput, days of hospitalisation provided, bed occupancy rates),
• patients (types of admitted patients, outpatients and operations performed), and
• staffing and finances.

• There were 612 private hospitals operating in Australia in 2013-14, a net increase of 11 from 2012-13.
• The number of Acute and psychiatric hospitals increased by seven and the number of Free-standing day hospitals increased by four.
• There were 57 hospitals co-located with public hospitals (an increase of four).
• The number of operating theatres increased to 1,448 from 1,379 in 2012-13.
• The number of beds/chairs in Acute and psychiatric hospitals increased by 3.9% to 27,943 in 2013-14, and by 1.3% to 2,977 in Free-standing day hospitals.
• Staffing in Acute and psychiatric hospitals increased by 3.3% (to 58,170) and by 4.7% (to 4,243) in Free-standing day hospitals.

• Total private hospital income increased by 7.9% to $12.7 billion.
• Acute and psychiatric hospitals accounted for 92.2% of all private hospital income.
• Total private hospital patient income accounted for 95.6% of total private hospital income.

• Total private hospital recurrent expenditure increased by 6.9% to $11.4 billion.
• Wages and salaries accounted for 49.2% of recurrent expenditure among Acute and psychiatric hospitals.
• Wages and salaries accounted for 41.9% of recurrent expenditure in Free-standing day hospitals.

• There were 4.3 million patient separations from all private hospitals in 2013-14 (a 4.0% increase from 2012-13).
• Acute and psychiatric hospitals accounted for 3.2 million patient separations.
• The proportion of patients aged 65 and over in Australian private hospitals increased from 41.0% in 2012-13 to 42.2% in 2013-14.
• Patients aged 65 years and over accounted for 41.2% of all separation in Acute and psychiatric hospitals and 44.5% of patient separations in Free-standing day hospitals.
  

This publication presents details from the 2013-14 national census of private hospitals. Three categories of private hospitals are identified: Acute hospitals, Psychiatric hospitals and Free-standing day hospital facilities. There are relatively few psychiatric hospitals and some of these are owned by the same parent company. To maintain the confidentiality of data, psychiatric hospitals are combined with acute hospitals in most tables in this publication.

Any differences between the data presented in this publication and the data shown in other reports on private hospital activity are due to differences in scope and coverage, relative completeness of the data sources and differing error resolution procedures.

The Private Health Establishments Collection was not conducted for the 2007-08 reference period due to ABS budgetary constraints. This represented a break in the time series for the collection.


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