Urgent first appointments
A specialist clinic is a unit within a hospital that provides planned, non-admitted services.
An urgent first appointment is where a patient has been referred to a specialist clinic and the clinician determines the patient should be seen within 30 days from the date the referral was received.
Tap the buttons below for specific data about urgent first appointments. You can filter by specialty clinic and health service.
Scroll further down for more information about the data (measures).
Data for some health services from 1 July 2023 has been impacted by IT vendor service interruption. Data presented here may be incomplete and should be treated with caution. Data will be updated with the next release. Please contact [email protected] if you require further information about this interruption.About the data:
The above specialist clinic measures look at:
- first appointments
- median waiting time
- 90th percentile waiting time
- percentage of patients seen within recommended time.
About first appointments
First appointment data is recorded when a first appointment is booked, even if the patient does not attend.
Once referred to a specialist clinic by a GP or other health provider, a patient can only have one first appointment. This is recorded at the specialist clinic they were referred to.
About waiting time
The number of days between the date a specialist clinic receives an urgent patient referral, and the date that patient is first seen by the specialist clinic.
All waiting times are calculated from shortest to longest, and the time that sits in the middle is the median waiting time (or 50th percentile waiting time). The median waiting time is the time within which half of the patients attended their first appointment.
The 90th percentile waiting time is the time within which 90% of urgent patients attended their first appointment.
About percentage of patients seen within recommended time
The proportion of urgent patients who were seen by the specialist clinic within the recommended time of less than 30 days from receiving the referral.
The 2022-23 statewide target is for 100% of patients to wait less than 30 days for an urgent appointment. The 2023–24 statewide target has not been finalised.
Notes
- Data source: Victorian Integrated Non-Admitted Health Dataset (VINAH). Data extracted on 16 January 2024
- Results for the current financial year are preliminary and may change from quarter to quarter, final results will be available in November. Results from the previous financial year have been finalised
- From 6 February 2023, Monash Health commenced providing maternity services at Sandringham Hospital, replacing The Women's
- On 23 February 2023, Monash Health opened the Victorian Heart Hospital
- No data submitted for the Oct–Dec 2023 period for Western Health. Results for Western Health exclude Bacchus Marsh and Melton campuses.
- Care needs to be taken when assessing results and comparing them to prior periods
- * No results are available.