It has been revealed in a recent report by the COAG Reform Council that the waiting times of patients for elective surgery has increased notably in the past few years.

A survey had been conducted by the team to inspect the healthcare system of Australia, says the report. It has found that the national figures regarding waiting times have gone up as result of failure of large states to meet the goals.

Consumers Health Forum chief executive Carol Bennett has told that the same is happening even after the provision of a full commonwealth funding, particularly to help reduce waiting times for elective surgery.

He added, "Consumers have a right to know what each state and territory has done with this extra money and how long before we see the benefits of the additional funding".

However, some regions like the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia have shown improvements, but Victoria and Queensland have shown a significant rise in waiting times.

It has been discovered that an overall increase of 20.5% has been realized by NSW hospitals from 34 to 36 days in the three years to 2010/11. The group says that NSW has been performing extremely badly and is failing to fulfill patients’ needs.