National Hospital Cost Data Collection Public Sector 2023-24
Date published: 29 July 2024
The National Hospital Cost Data Collection (NHCDC) Public Sector Report 2023–24 presents a summary of the public hospital data gathered for the 2023–24 financial year.
We received data from 774 health service providers and public hospitals from across Australia, an increase of 34 compared to the previous year.
Key findings from the report include:
- total national expenditure on public sector hospital activity in 2023–24 was $78.65 billion, a 13% increase from $69.87 billion in the previous year
- in-scope patient encounters increased to 48.2 million, a 9% increase compared to 2022–23, largely driven by growth in non-admitted service events, with additional increases in emergency department and admitted acute activity
- admitted acute care expenditure totalled $44.69 billion, accounting for 56.8% of total national expenditure on public hospital activity.
The NHCDC Public Sector 2023–24 infographic contains a high-level overview of the costs per activity stream.
The NHCDC Public Sector Appendix Tables 2023–24 offer further details from the data collection.
These specifications contain detailed guidance on the data requested for the 2023–24 NHCDC public sector.
We ask jurisdictions to submit a data quality statement with their annual NHCDC submission. The statement allows jurisdictions to provide additional information about their data, including anything that may affect how we process or interpret it.