An interim report on Victoria’s ambulance service shows response-time performance has fallen steadily over the past six years.
The report, which was promised before the election, found Ambulance Victoria consistently failed to meet its performance measure of responding to at least 85 per cent of code one cases within 15 minutes.
In 2008-09, 82.4 per cent of code one cases were seen to within 15 minutes, but that dropped to 77.1 per cent in 2010-11, and 73.7 per cent in 2013-14.
Premier Daniel Andrews said that was not good enough, and that “we can’t settle for these response times getting worse and worse because minutes matter to Victorians’ lives”.
He said the Government would continue to consult with paramedics, doctors and others in the health system, before the full report is released by the end of the year.
“There are many different options for reform and improvement,” he said.
“The best ideas to improve our ambulance services and to save lives are coming and will continue to come from the paramedics who are out there in every community saving lives every hour of every day.”
The report also found about 60 per cent of all incidents categorised as code one were classified wrongly.
“Every time we’re sending paramedics to a case where they weren’t actually needed, that means they are unable to respond to the genuine lights and sirens situation,” Mr Andrews said.
He said having more clinically-trained paramedics in the 000 call centre could help change that.
Paramedics suffering from bullying, low morale
The report found paramedics were suffering from low morale and unacceptable injury and violence.
Twenty-eight per cent of paramedics surveyed said they had experienced bullying at work.
Ambulance Victoria’s acting chief executive Tony Walker said bullying would not be tolerated, but that it was important to understand the pressures staff are under.
“When you’ve got an organisation under significant pressure, and people are trying to drive increased performance from the same workforce, behaviours come out that are not ideal and not reflective of what I’d expect from a modern workplace,” he said.
Morgyn McCarthy-Harding has been a paramedic in Melbourne’s outer west for five years.
“Our shift lengths of 14 hours, which can easily extend out to 15 or 16 hours, are incredibly long and incredibly tiring,” she said.
Ms McCarthy-Harding said more needed to be done to make sure paramedics sought support from their peers without stigma.
“I certainly have first-hand experience of going to bad jobs, trying to cope with the stress and the stress of family life and all of it put together can get too much and you don’t really realise it,” she said.