The Minns Labor Government will establish the State’s first High Volume Planned Surgery Centre at Northern Beaches Hospital, to help reduce surgery wait times across NSW.
From 1 July 2026, up to an extra 5,000 surgeries will be performed at the hospital each year through the newly established Planned Surgery Centre.
Patients in the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District will be able to be referred to the Planned Surgery Hub for high-demand specialties such as ophthalmology, orthopaedics, ear, nose and throat (ENT), general surgery and gynaecology.
This will help reduce surgical wait lists while easing demand on some of the busiest hospitals in our community.
Information on how to be referred to the NBH will be released ahead of the Centre’s opening.
The new Planned Surgery Centre builds on the Minns Labor Government’s decision to return Northern Beaches Hospital to public ownership later this year, reversing one of the state’s most damaging privatisation experiments.
The hospital will come under the management of Northern Sydney Local Health District and part of NSW Health by mid-2026.
Under the agreement for transition of the hospital:
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The entire 494-bed hospital will return to public ownership
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All clinical and support staff currently working at Northern Beaches Hospital have been offered jobs by NSW Health at the facility, and
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Staff entitlements to annual, long service and sick leave will transfer across from Healthscope to NSW Health.
NSW Health appointed health sector leader David Swan to provide independent expert advice on future private health opportunities at Northern Beaches Hospital.
More than 1,800 existing Northern Beaches Hospital staff - including nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and support staff - have been offered roles with NSW Health at Northern Beaches, with offers to medical staff commencing in February 2026.
The Minns Labor Government continues to repair the damage caused by the former Coalition Government’s failed privatisation agenda, which also included the attempted privatisation of hospitals at Maitland, Wyong, Goulburn, Shellharbour and Bowral.
The passage of Joe’s Law now protects NSW communities from future privatisation of public hospitals.
Member for Penrith, Karen McKeown OAM said:
“This new high volume planned Surgery Centre will make a real difference for patients in Penrith and right across NSW by cutting wait times and taking pressure off some our Nepean Hospital.
“By bringing Northern Beaches Hospital back into public hands and expanding planned surgery capacity, we’re fixing a broken system and putting patients and healthcare workers first.”
