Caboolture Hospital
Specialist outpatient
Your General Practitioner or Practitioner referred you to specialist outpatients as they considered that your reason for referral condition required specialist opinion beyond what is available within the primary healthcare or community setting.
Referrals are seen in order of clinical urgency. The clinical urgency of your referral is assessed using Clinical Prioritisation Criteria (CPC) where they exist for a specialty, or as per existing local referral guidelines. CPCs are clinical decision support tools that will help ensure patients referred for public specialist outpatient services in Queensland are assessed in order of clinical urgency regardless of where they live and that patients are seen when they are ready for care. The CPCs are available at the following link: Clinical Prioritisation Criteria | Clinical Prioritisation Criteria (health.qld.gov.au)
Clinical urgency categorisation recommends a patient’s clinically recommended waiting time as:
- Category 1 – appointment required within 30 calendar days.
- Category 2 – appointment required within 90 calendar days.
- Category 3 – appointment required within 365 calendar days.
In some specialities there are high numbers of patients waiting to be seen that may result in patients waiting longer than clinically recommended.
For further information about specialist outpatient clinics at Queensland public hospitals, visit Specialist Services or Outpatient Clinics. Please also see our Data Quality Statement.
In 2020 a review was conducted of the Specialist Outpatient Data Collection (SODC) which included Corporate Clinic Codes (CCCs). At that time a number of amendments to the SODC were recommended including the removal of CCC 255 Diabetes from the scope of reportable specialist services. This was actioned from 1 June 2020. In May 2023, a decision was made by the Healthcare Improvement Unit to recommence the inclusion of CCC 255 Diabetes in the SODC from 1 July 2023. This change has been made to enable the public reporting of Diabetes.
In the 2023-24 financial year to date (March 2024), across the State, an estimated 552,000 referrals were received for an initial specialist outpatient appointment. This represents 7.5 per cent more than the same period last year.
Patients waiting for an initial service event in a specialist outpatient clinic | Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
Medical | 437 | 1,641 | 653 | 2,731 |
Surgical | 104 | 392 | 538 | 1,034 |
total | 541 | 2,033 | 1,191 | 3,765 |
% Patients waiting within the clinically recommended time | Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cardiac Surgery | - | - | - | - |
Cardiology | 18.3% | 31.1% | 28% | 28.6% |
Dermatology | - | - | - | - |
Diabetes | - | - | - | - |
Ear Nose and Throat | - | - | - | - |
Endocrinology | 75% | 25% | 69% | 39.5% |
Gastroenterology | - | 4.6% | 56.2% | 6.5% |
General Medicine | 33.3% | 49.6% | 100% | 73.9% |
General Surgery | 75.6% | 86.4% | 100% | 87.4% |
Geriatrics | 17.7% | 16.7% | - | 17% |
Gynaecology | 66.7% | 44.3% | 80% | 69% |
Medical Other | 40% | 24.6% | 61.3% | 37.2% |
Nephrology | - | - | - | - |
Neurology | 66.7% | 43.8% | 93% | 69.5% |
Neurosurgery | - | - | - | - |
Obstetrics | - | 100% | - | 100% |
Oncology | 89.5% | - | - | 89.5% |
Ophthalmology | - | - | - | - |
Orthopaedic | - | - | - | - |
Paediatric Medicine | 100% | 80% | 86.8% | 84.5% |
Paediatric Surgery | - | - | - | - |
Pain Management | - | - | - | - |
Palliative Care | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery | - | - | - | - |
Respiratory | 25.6% | 31.5% | 74.1% | 34.2% |
Rheumatology | 60% | 59.6% | 80% | 64.6% |
Surgical Other | - | - | - | - |
Urology | - | - | - | - |
Vascular Surgery | - | - | - | - |
Initial service events in a specialist outpatient clinic | Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
Medical | 555 | 1,058 | 636 | 2,249 |
Surgical | 479 | 373 | 159 | 1,011 |
total | 1,034 | 1,431 | 795 | 3,260 |
90th percentile waiting times for patients (days) | Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cardiac Surgery | - | - | - | - |
Cardiology | 135 | 461 | 661 | 432 |
Dermatology | - | - | - | - |
Diabetes | - | - | - | - |
Ear Nose and Throat | - | - | 287 | 287 |
Endocrinology | 40 | 400 | 605 | 54 |
Gastroenterology | 276 | 318 | - | 290 |
General Medicine | 60 | 106 | 165 | 140 |
General Surgery | 76 | 99 | 255 | 159 |
Geriatrics | 174 | 459 | - | 414 |
Gynaecology | 35 | 179 | 443 | 415 |
Medical Other | 129 | 203 | 76 | 145 |
Nephrology | - | - | - | - |
Neurology | 47 | 217 | 660 | 217 |
Neurosurgery | - | - | - | - |
Obstetrics | - | 36 | 95 | 37 |
Oncology | 34 | - | - | 34 |
Ophthalmology | - | - | - | - |
Orthopaedic | - | - | - | - |
Paediatric Medicine | 27 | 192 | 596 | 389 |
Paediatric Surgery | - | - | - | - |
Pain Management | - | - | - | - |
Palliative Care | 41 | 31 | 115 | 89 |
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery | - | - | - | - |
Respiratory | 81 | 369 | - | 104 |
Rheumatology | 56 | 218 | 534 | 276 |
Surgical Other | - | - | - | - |
Urology | - | - | - | - |
Vascular Surgery | - | - | - | - |
All data is preliminary and subject to change. "-" indicates data not available to determine calculation or not applicable.
Source: Queensland Health Specialist Outpatient Collection.