Wednesday, 26 August 2026

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (12:54): (2547) My question is for the Minister for Health. My office has been hearing regular recent reports of emergency paramedics from Ararat, Stawell and Horsham transporting unplanned non-emergency patients to Ballarat because no non-emergency patient crews are available. This is leaving those towns uncovered for emergency transport, especially overnight. At the start of last year the government tabled a review into non-emergency patient transport. Recommendation 1 stated that:

Planned … NEPT services should be separated, with Ambulance Victoria retaining responsibility for unplanned NEPT in line with its core organisational focus on serving people with time-critical emergencies. Planned NEPT should be managed separately to prevent its disruption by unplanned NEPT and to ensure timely patient flow into and out of healthcare facilities.

Why hasn’t the government acted on this recommendation?