--- title: Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type, Australia resource: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/ publisher: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare licence: CC BY 4.0 licence_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ version: 2026-10-27 as_at: 2026-08-19 release: 2026081901 rows: 625 fields: 11 source: https://myhospitalsapi.aihw.gov.au/api/v1/measure-downloads/myh-cancer source_sha256: 319d3fbc2e3a79a28e47c5c8a784b0ad4d59cd46bef50ecfa56363c426eb246b language: en-AU operator: National Digital not_endorsed: true --- # Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type, Australia Median waiting times for surgery for malignant bowel, breast and lung cancer, and the shares treated within 30 and 45 days, for each public hospital in 2011-12 and 2012-13, from AIHW MyHospitals. Published by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare under CC BY 4.0. National Digital converted the publisher's file to other formats. It renamed and typed the columns and kept only those the schema lists. It made each suppressed value a null with a flag. It kept the publisher's marker for each empty cell in a markers column. National Digital made these changes, and the publisher is not responsible for them. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has not endorsed this site. Also called: Waiting times for surgery for malignant cancer, Breast cancer surgery waiting times by hospital, Bowel cancer surgery waiting times by hospital, Lung cancer surgery waiting times by hospital. ## Download Latest version, redirects to `https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/`: - csv: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.csv (121 KB) - xlsx: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.xlsx (39 KB) - json: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.json (266 KB) - parquet: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.parquet (16 KB) - sqlite: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.sqlite (184 KB) - duckdb: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.duckdb - ndjson: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.ndjson (263 KB) - csv.gz: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.csv.gz (7.7 KB) Pinned version 2026-10-27: `https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/data.`. Dated versions keep their content. ## Query The query API returns only the rows you ask for, as JSON, NDJSON or CSV, from the same typed rows as the files. It needs no key. Rows: https://publicdata.au/api/v1/datasets/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/rows. Counts and sums: https://publicdata.au/api/v1/datasets/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/aggregate. - Rows: https://publicdata.au/api/v1/datasets/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/rows?year=eq.2012%E2%80%9313&limit=5 - Aggregate: https://publicdata.au/api/v1/datasets/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/aggregate?group=cancer_type&metric=count&year=eq.2012%E2%80%9313 Each filter is `field=operator.value` in the query string, and every filter must match. A number or date field compares as a number or date, and a text field compares as text. Values are case-sensitive, except that `like` and `ilike` ignore case in the ASCII letters A to Z. Prefix `not.` to negate a filter, as `not.eq.value`. Operators: `eq.value`, `neq.value`, `gt.value`, `gte.value`, `lt.value`, `lte.value`, `like.*text*`, `ilike.*text*`, `in.(a,b,c)`, `is.null`. - `select`: Fields to return, comma-separated. Every field when absent. - `order`: `field.asc` or `field.desc`, comma-separated. When absent, rows come in the order of the file they are read from. For the newest versions that is the version's own data.parquet, which keeps the publisher's order unless the dataset sorted it. Any other version is read from the Parquet file the answer names in `file`, and when that file is sorted the answer names its sort in `order`, which ties follow too. - `limit`: Rows per page, 1 to 10,000. 100 when absent. - `offset`: Rows to skip. The `next` URL in each answer sets it for you. - `group`: On `aggregate`, fields to group by, comma-separated. - `metric`: On `aggregate`, `count`, `sum.field`, `avg.field`, `min.field` or `max.field`, comma-separated. `count` when absent. - `format`: `json`, `ndjson` or `csv`. JSON carries the provenance header, and the others carry it in response headers. Without a version the API answers from the newest version, and that answer changes when the publisher releases again. Put `versions//` before `rows` or `aggregate` for an answer from that version alone. Every version with a table can be queried, and `/api/v1/datasets//versions` lists them. A query on a version the database does not hold is read from its Parquet file, and one that would read too much of it is refused with DuckDB SQL that answers it from the file. The API allows 60 requests in 10 seconds from one address. Above that it answers 429 for 10 seconds with a `Retry-After` header, a `RateLimit-Policy` header and a JSON body that gives the limit. Every API answer carries the same `RateLimit-Policy`. A client should wait the `Retry-After` seconds, or read the files, which have no limit. OpenAPI for this dataset: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/openapi.json ## Explore Charts and dashboards in the browser: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/explore/. A dashboard can be shared as a link or embedded. ## Fields | field | type | publisher's header | note | |---|---|---|---| | `reporting_unit` | string | Reporting unit | | | `reporting_unit_type` | string | Reporting unit type | | | `state` | string | State | | | `peer_group` | string | Peer group | | | `year` | string | Time period | | | `cancer_type` | string | Cancer type | | | `surgeries` | integer | Number of surgeries | | | `median_wait_days` | integer | Median waiting time (days) | | | `peer_group_average_days` | integer | Peer group average (days) | | | `share_within_30_days` | number | Surgeries within 30 days | The fraction of patients who received surgery within 30 days, 0.85 for 85 per cent. | | `share_within_45_days` | number | Surgeries within 45 days | The fraction of patients who received surgery within 45 days, 0.85 for 85 per cent. | Key: `reporting_unit, reporting_unit_type, year, cancer_type`. ## Versions - 2026-10-27 as at 19 August 2026: 625 rows, 11 fields, sha256 319d3fbc2e3a. https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/ Machine-readable: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/versions.json, https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/changes.json, https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/datapackage.json, https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/schema.json, https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/history.tar.zst ## Part of AIHW MyHospitals - [Hospitals, Local Hospital Networks and Primary Health Networks in MyHospitals, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-hospitals-myhospitals/) - [Reported measures and their codes in MyHospitals, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-myhospitals-reported-measures/) - [Reporting unit mappings to health networks and states in MyHospitals, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-myhospitals-reporting-unit-mappings/) - [Reporting unit codes and alternative names in MyHospitals, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-myhospitals-reporting-units/) - [Emergency department patients seen on time by hospital and triage category, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-ed-patients-seen-on-time/) - [Emergency department presentations by hospital and triage category, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-ed-presentations/) - [Time spent in emergency departments by hospital and patient group, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-ed-time-in-ed/) - [Emergency department patients who left within four hours by hospital and patient group, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-ed-time-within-4-hours/) - [Elective surgery waiting times by hospital and urgency category, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-elective-surgery-waiting-times/) - [Elective surgery waiting times by hospital and intended procedure, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-elective-surgery-waiting-times-by-procedure/) - [Elective surgery waiting times by hospital and surgical specialty, Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/au-elective-surgery-waiting-times-by-specialty/) ## Same subject, other publishers - [Elective surgery by urgency category and hospital, Queensland, each quarter](https://publicdata.au/d/qld-elective-surgery-by-category/) (Qld) - [Elective surgery by specialty and hospital, Queensland, each quarter](https://publicdata.au/d/qld-elective-surgery-by-specialty/) (Qld) - [Public dental waiting lists by clinic, Queensland, latest quarter](https://publicdata.au/d/qld-public-dental-waiting-lists/) (Qld) - [People waiting and median waits in emergency departments, Queensland, live](https://publicdata.au/d/qld-emergency-department-waits-now/) (Qld) - [Emergency department busyness by day and hour, Queensland](https://publicdata.au/d/qld-emergency-department-busyness/) (Qld) - [Public hospital emergency departments and minor injury clinics, Queensland, live list](https://publicdata.au/d/qld-emergency-department-facilities/) (Qld) - [Public hospital locations, South Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/sa-public-hospitals/) (SA) - [Private hospital locations, South Australia](https://publicdata.au/d/sa-private-hospitals/) (SA) - [Ambulance Victoria response times by council area, 2018-19](https://publicdata.au/d/vic-ambulance-response-times-by-lga/) (Vic) - [Ambulance Victoria response times by town and city, 2017-18](https://publicdata.au/d/vic-ambulance-response-times-by-town/) (Vic) - [Measles public exposure sites, Victoria](https://publicdata.au/d/vic-measles-exposure-sites/) (Vic) ## Attribution and citation Based on Australian Institute of Health and Welfare material. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australian Government, MyHospitals Data API, cancer surgery waiting times data extract, sourced 26 October 2026, https://myhospitalsapi.aihw.gov.au/, licensed under CC BY 4.0. The licence requires the publisher's attribution. We ask that you also name publicdata.au and link to the version you used. Plain text: Based on Australian Institute of Health and Welfare material. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australian Government, MyHospitals Data API, cancer surgery waiting times data extract, sourced 26 October 2026, https://myhospitalsapi.aihw.gov.au/, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Serialised and versioned by National Digital at publicdata.au, https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/ Harvard: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2026) Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type, Australia, version 2026-10-27 [data set], CC BY 4.0, sourced 26 October 2026. Serialised and versioned by National Digital at publicdata.au. Available at: https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/ Markdown: Data: [AIHW MyHospitals](https://www.aihw.gov.au/copyright), Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), sourced 26 October 2026. Files: [publicdata.au](https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/) by [National Digital](https://nationaldigital.com.au/). ## Questions ### How do I download Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type as a CSV file? Open https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/latest/data.csv. It redirects to the newest dated version, which is https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/data.csv today. The same path serves Excel, JSON, Parquet, SQLite, DuckDB, NDJSON. A dated URL never changes, so use it when the file must stay the same. ### Can I open Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type in Excel? Yes. https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/data.xlsx is a workbook with the 625 rows on a records sheet, the field list on a second sheet and the provenance on a third. The CSV also opens in Excel. https://publicdata.au/d/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times/v/2026-10-27/data.csv.gz is the CSV at about a tenth of the size. ### What years does Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type cover? The current version covers 2011 to 2026, as at 19 August 2026. Each release from AIHW becomes a new dated version here, and earlier versions stay online. ### How often is Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type updated? AIHW no longer updates it. This site checks the portal every week and adds a dated version when the file changes. ### Can I use Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type commercially? Yes. CC BY 4.0 allows commercial use, redistribution and derived works as long as the attribution is kept. The attribution string is in this page's side column and inside every file. ### Is this the official source for Cancer surgery waiting times by hospital and cancer type? No. The publisher is Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and its page is https://www.aihw.gov.au/copyright. National Digital converted the publisher's file to other formats. It renamed and typed the columns and kept only those the schema lists. It made each suppressed value a null with a flag. It kept the publisher's marker for each empty cell in a markers column. National Digital made these changes, and the publisher is not responsible for them. The original sits beside every version as source.xlsx with its SHA-256, so the two can be compared. ### What is in each row? One public hospital, one financial year and one type of cancer, which is bowel, breast or lung cancer. It gives the number of elective surgeries for the malignant cancer, the median days waited, the peer group's average, and the shares of patients who received surgery within 30 days and within 45 days. ### Why are there only two years and no state totals? The Institute publishes these measures for 2011-12 and 2012-13 only. It reports them for each hospital and its peer group, and it publishes no figure for a Local Hospital Network, a state or the nation. ### What do the blanks mean? The Institute's explanatory notes define two codes. A dash means "There were no patients reported for this indicator in this time period." `NP` means "Reported data did not meet the criteria to calculate this indicator." The notes do not define `<5` or `10–30`, which appear only in the number of surgeries, or `>=90%`, which appears only in the shares within 30 and 45 days. Each of these cells is null here, and the row's `markers` column holds the code the Institute wrote, such as `{"surgeries":"10–30"}`. A `<5`, `10–30`, `>=90%` or `NP` cell is also named in the `suppressed` column. A cell the Institute left empty has no marker. The shares are fractions, so 0.85 means 85 per cent. ### How does this join to the hospital list? Each row names its hospital as the Institute's list of hospitals and networks in this collection names it, so the two join on the name and the reporting unit type, which give one unit each. The code is on the hospital list. ## What this site did to the data Cells were typed, headers were renamed to snake_case and the encoding was made UTF-8. Rows were left alone. Nothing is derived. The publisher's file is beside every version as `source.xlsx`. ## Improve this dataset This page is built from [register/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times.yaml](https://github.com/National-Digital/publicdata.au/blob/main/register/au-cancer-surgery-waiting-times.yaml) on GitHub, and a fix to it is welcome as a pull request. https://publicdata.au/contribute/ explains how.