Patients are still languishing in emergency departments, elective surgery waits have stagnated or grown, while hospitals are facing an ageing population with increasingly complex medical needs, the AMA's latest Hospital Report Card shows.

"To put it bluntly, public hospital performance against these measures across all states and territories has been woeful," AMA president Dr Michael Gannon said.

While most states and territories had failed against the internationally recognised targets they were measured against – including emergency department and elective surgery wait lists – Victoria did receive a tick for decreasing wait lists for non-urgent elective surgery.

But the AMA found Victoria had failed to meet targets on emergency department wait lists for patients, as well as overall targets for the percentage of elective surgery patients seen within the clinically recommended time.

Victorian health department data shows 73 per cent of emergency department patients were treated within the recommended time in the quarter to December, a slight decrease compared with 76 per cent for the same period in 2015. It also shows of all elective surgery patients, 89.9 per cent were treated within the recommended time in the quarter compared to 88.2 per cent the previous year.

The figures show the median wait in Victoria in the December quarter was 29 days, the same as it was in the previous year, and about a week below the national average.

Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy said the state government had made a "record investment" in health services and more patients were accessing surgeries and care sooner.

"We are seeing this through our performance in elective surgery, with Victorian wait times below the national average, meaning more Victorian patients waiting for elective surgery are now getting their surgeries quicker than a year earlier," she said.

"While we're continuing to invest in health, Victorian hospitals are under ever increasing pressure due to the federal Liberal government's failure to adequately invest in and fund our hospitals."

In Victoria, funding for hospitals increased 6.1 per cent in the 2016-17 budget and has increased more than 11 per cent since 2014-15, according to health department figures.

Nationally, more than one in four people who presented to an emergency department in 2015-2016 were not seen within the four-hour window, well short of the 90 per cent target, the AMA analysis of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Australian Hospital Statistics found.

Median wait times for all elective surgeries had increased over the past decade, rising to 37 days, the highest reported since 2001-2002, the report showed.

The AMA blamed funding shortfalls for poor performance across the board, saying that "the failure of governments to provide sufficient funding for public hospitals is choking their capacity to provide services to the public".

"The AMA Report Card shows that, against key measures, the performance of our public hospitals is essentially frozen at the unsatisfactory levels of previous years."

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said that while the states run the hospital system, Commonwealth funding is increasing by approximately $1 billion per year and was forecast to grow from $13.8 billion to $21.2 billion in 2019-2020

"This represents an increase of $7.4 billion since the Coalition came into government – or more than 50 per cent," he said.

Labor health spokeswoman Catherine King said the burden on hospitals would only increase the longer the freeze on GP rebates continued.

"Emergency department and elective surgery waiting times are getting worse as a result this government's hospital cuts and unfortunately, this situation will only get much worse as the Medicare freeze drives people from seeing their GP and into our straining emergency departments," Ms King said.