Victorians in the dark on Ambulance Performance

LAST week in the estimates hearings it was confirmed that the Andrews Labor Government and Ambulance Victoria (AV) have taken their eye off key Ambulance performance measures, says Shadow Health Minister Mary Wooldridge.

When questioned on the 2016-17 year, the Secretary of DHHS and CEO of Ambulance Victoria were:

• Unable to answer how many ambulances were ramped at hospitals;
• Unable to answer how many times Ambulance Crews were “redistributed” away from hospitals (formerly known as Bypass);
• Unable to explain why AV responded to 37,000 fewer code 1 patients in less than 15 minutes;
• Where the missing $89 million of promised funding was; and
• Why the revised Ambulance Victoria Dispatch Grid, which was promised in hearings last year, had not been provided.

The CEO of Ambulance Victoria let the cat out of the bag when he informed the hearing that ramping and bypass data is no longer even collated for himself, let alone the Board or the Minister for Ambulance Services.

Further, public reporting of bypass data was axed by Jill Hennessy in 2015 to ensure the Victorian public are also kept in the dark.

This is in the face of a significant decline in Ambulance to Emergency Department transfer performance, with the proportion of ambulance patient transfers within 40 minutes, having dropped from 88.4% to 83% under Daniel Andrews.

It’s simply not good enough for the Government to claim victory for investing additional funding into our ambulance services, Victorians deserve transparency on Ambulance performance from Daniel Andrews who promised it before he was elected but has done the opposite in Government.

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