How long is the wait for surgery?
Median waits from specialist assessment to treatment were 158 days for hip replacement, 213 days for knee replacement, 120 days for cataract surgery (OECD, 2025).
Updated
How long New Zealanders wait for common planned operations, hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery, from specialist assessment to treatment, as reported to the OECD: the median wait in days and the share waiting more than three months. Annual from 2003.
Measures waiting after a specialist has decided to treat; it does not include the wait to see a specialist in the first place. Annual figures; Health NZ's quarterly health-target reporting (to be added) gives more recent detail.
A percentage meeting a health target describes the group covered by that target. Its definition tells you which patients are counted and when their waiting clock starts and ends.
Read the period beside each number before comparing it with another figure. A monthly observation, a quarterly result and a financial year cover different spans of time. The latest release can also revise earlier observations. The chart and downloads keep the published periods so you can check which figures are being compared. A change in waiting times describes what happened during that period; it does not by itself explain why it happened or identify the effect of a government policy. Definitions and coverage matter as much as the size of a change.
Hip replacement: median days from specialist assessment to treatment was 154 days in 2024, a year earlier.
The earliest observation on the same basis was 52 days in 2003.
Waiting times: definitions
How long New Zealanders wait for common planned operations, hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery, from specialist assessment to treatment, as reported to the OECD: the median wait in days and the share waiting more than three months. Annual from 2003.
- Measures waiting after a specialist has decided to treat; it does not include the wait to see a specialist in the first place.
- Annual figures; Health NZ's quarterly health-target reporting (to be added) gives more recent detail.
Show the figures
| Period | Hip replacement: median days from specialist assessment to treatment (days) |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 158 days |
| 2024 | 154 days |
| 2023 | 163 days |
| 2022 | 155 days |
| 2021 | 112 days |
| 2020 | 106 days |
| 2019 | 99 days |
| 2018 | 81 days |
| 2017 | 73 days |
| 2016 | 76 days |
| 2015 | 76 days |
| 2014 | 85 days |
| 2013 | 98 days |
| 2012 | 99 days |
| 2011 | 90 days |
| 2010 | 91 days |
| 2009 | 82 days |
| 2008 | 78 days |
| 2007 | 77 days |
| 2006 | 63 days |
Years as labelled by the OECD (usually calendar years; some countries report financial years). Source: OECD. Lines break at basis changes and missing periods.
Waiting times: questions for your AI
Download the data, attach it in your assistant, then paste the prompt.
The attached CSV is Waiting times for elective surgery in NZ, from OECD. Answer: How long is the wait for surgery? Name the unit and period. Use only directly supported observations. Definitions: How long New Zealanders wait for common planned operations, hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery, from specialist assessment to treatment, as reported to the OECD: the median wait in days and the share waiting more than three months. Annual from 2003. Limits: Measures waiting after a specialist has decided to treat; it does not include the wait to see a specialist in the first place. Annual figures; Health NZ's quarterly health-target reporting (to be added) gives more recent detail.
More questions about waiting times
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Waiting times: sources
The source publication, licence and snapshot used to build this page.
- Organisation
- OECD, Waiting times for elective surgery
- Licence
- OECD Terms and Conditions (Data), reuse including commercial with citation. OECD (2026), Waiting times for elective surgery, OECD Data Explorer, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/ (accessed on 10 October 2026). Figures selected and transformed by NZ in Numbers. Anyone reusing these figures must keep this OECD citation.
- Reuse limits
- Some OECD datasets include third-party material with its own terms; check the OECD terms page before monetising.
- Snapshot
- data/raw/oecd-waiting-times/2026-10-10_b9d3c31d1c4e.csv
- SHA256
- b9d3c31d1c4edb45de3717b11048320eaed107fe0cefc626dc1d49d9c9ca4d51
- Retrieved
- 10 October 2026