State wide highlights

Some of the major improvements from the plan include:

  • Building 3 new hospitals

  • Recruiting over 9,000 health workers

  • Expanding 11 hospitals

  • More investment in The Royal Flying Doctor Service and Queensland Ambulance Service

  • Upgrading rural and regional health facilities

  • Expanding virtual care

  • Thousands of new hospital beds

  • More mental health services and mental health professionals

New hospitals and facilities

  • New Bundaberg Hospital – a $1.2 billion investment that will deliver an additional 121 beds
  • New Coomera Hospital – a $1.3 billion investment that will deliver an additional 404 beds
  • New Toowoomba Hospital – a $1.3 billion investment that will deliver an additional 118 beds
  • New Queensland Cancer Centre – a new $750 million centre based in the Herston Health Precinct at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital which will have 150 beds


Hospital expansions

We’re expanding 11 hospitals across Queensland – including Townsville, Cairns, Mackay, Hervey Bay and the South East corner.


More beds

The new hospitals and hospital expansion projects will deliver 2,509 extra beds across the state over the next 6 years. This is in addition to the 869 beds being delivered through current expansion projects.


Upgrading rural and remote facilities

We’re investing $943.5 million over 7 years to upgrade and replace facilities in rural and regional areas. We’ll begin with facilities in Moranbah, Bamaga, Normanton, Pormpuraaw, Tara and Cow Bay.


Recruiting more health workers

We’re recruiting more than 9,000 new staff to deliver world class health care to Queenslanders. This includes building our First Nations health workforce.

We’ll also focus on increasing graduate intakes across multiple health disciplines and increase our training capacity. We’re spending $115 million to improve staff accommodation in rural and remote areas.


Investing in mental health

We’re investing an additional $1.645 billion over the next 5 years in mental health, including alcohol and other drug services and to support suicide prevention.

We’ll focus on building services and supporting vulnerable groups in our communities. This includes more beds for adolescents, young adults and people suffering from eating disorders. We’re investing in services for new mothers and mental health for older Australians.


Virtual care

We’re utilising innovative technological solutions to improve the patient experience, like Metro North’s Virtual Emergency Department. We’re spending $300 million to continue the roll out of the electronic medical record program to more hospitals. This will support care for patients living in rural and remote areas, First Nations peoples and other diverse communities.


Boosting Queensland Ambulance Service

We’re investing over $1.1 billion in Queensland Ambulance Service. This will include 535 more staff across the service, and 130 new and replacement vehicles.


Investing in The Royal Flying Doctor Service

We’re investing $334 million in The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS). This includes upgrading the RFDS base at Brisbane airport, which will feature new patient transfer facilities, state of the art hangers and training and administration areas.

Learn more about the Queensland Government budget 2022–2023

Read about the state's largest ever health budget on the Queensland Government Budget website or in our Queensland Health and Hospitals Plan report.

Queensland Budget 2022-23

The Queensland Health and Hospitals Plan (PDF 3.1 MB)

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Last updated: August 2022