Thursday, 18 May 2023

North-Eastern Metropolitan Region

Nicholas McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:56): (193) My constituency question is to the Minister for Ambulance Services, and it relates to ambulance response times, in particular code 1 incidents, which receive a lights-and-sirens response. These are for patients that require urgent paramedic and hospital care. Ambulance Victoria has two official response time targets – respond to code 1 incidents within 15 minutes for 85 per cent of incidents statewide and 90 per cent of incidents in centres with populations greater than 7500. The latest data highlights a worrying trend. Not one of the local government areas within our electorate, President, achieved the response time targets. This was also the case with data reported throughout 2022. During 2022 the highest response time percentage was Darebin at 77.7 per cent, the worst being Nillumbik – a staggering 40.4 per cent, well below the response time targets. The latest data shows a slight improvement from the previous quarter. However, compared to the same time last year, performance has barely improved, with some areas actually decreasing. So my question to the minister is: what measures are the government implementing to make sure that the downward spiral of service efficiency, which was putting lives at risk in 2022, does not continue in 2023?