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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with NSW Premier Chris Minns and NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles after a national cabinet in Brisbane in August.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,premiers and chief ministers will gather in Canberra on Wednesday for a national cabinet meeting that was meant to reach agreement on hospitals but has been overshadowed by rows over the cost of the NDIS and the division of GST revenue between the states.

In a sign of the challenges facing public hospitals,the new report from a peak federal agency warns that the portion of people waiting over a year for elective surgeries has more than quadrupled since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that up to 12,700 people died last financial year while waiting on public elective surgery waitlists,up from 9000 in the 2019 financial year.

Federal spending on state healthcare services,including hospitals,is forecast to grow from $28.4 billion this year to $34.3 billion in 2027. But the states and territories are pushing for a commitment to replace the spending cap because of the pressure on emergency departments and hospital wards.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned on Tuesday that the states and territories could not expect a huge injection of cash when the federal budget could not sustain a GST top-up deal struck by the Coalition during the last government and forecast to cost $33.9 billion over eight years to 2027.

“There are not tens of billions of dollars down the back of the Commonwealth’s couch to fund these kinds of things and so we need to recognise that,” Chalmers said.

“I don’t like taking potshots at the states and territories about difficult decisions that they might have to make. And,again,I ask them to understand the position that our budget is in.

“We’ve made some really good progress fixing the budget,but the pressures on our budget intensify rather than ease into the medium term. We’re a responsible government,we believe in responsible economic management,and that means trying to find a way through here.”

A potential deal at national cabinet would give the states more money for hospitals while they agree to invest in more disability services to ease the load on the NDIS.

An agreement on GST is challenging,however,when the states would see their revenues fall suddenly in 2027 if Albanese and Chalmers do not commit to keeping the Coalition arrangements on the consumption tax for at least the near term,pending a review in the longer term.

The data released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on Wednesday shows elective surgery wait times were at their highest level in 20 years during 2022-23 as public hospitals kept working to catch up from pandemic delays.

Almost 10 per cent of public hospital patients waited over a year for elective surgery,a more than four-fold increase from 2.1 per cent before the pandemic in 2018-19.

More than 37 per cent of people waited more than a year for a knee replacement (from 8.7 per cent) and almost a quarter were on waitlists for more than 365 days for a hip replacement (from 5.6 per cent).

Almost half of people (up from 12.3 per cent) waited more than a year for a septoplasty,which corrects airflow through the nose,while 39.2 per cent (up from 16.3 per cent) waited more than a year for myringoplasty or tympanoplasty surgeries on the ear.

The median wait time for all elective surgeries in public hospitals rose from 41 days before the pandemic to 49 days in the last financial year.

But median wait times blew out by more than 100 days for knee replacements (209 to 308 days),varicose vein treatment (108 to 216 days) and septoplasties (241 to 365 days).

Time spent in public hospital emergency departments has also surged:just 56 per cent of emergency department visits in 2022-23 were completed within four hours,down from 61 per cent the year before and 70 per cent before the pandemic.

The median length of emergency department stays has risen to six hours and four minutes,up from four hours and 20 minutes in 2018-19.

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