Thursday, 24 September 2026

 Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:04): (1502) My question is for the Minister for Ambulance Services. Minister, more than 800 people completed paramedicine degrees in Victoria last year. Ambulance Victoria does not employ most of them. Its first intake this financial year put 53 people on the road – 48 graduates and five already qualified paramedics. You have said that paramedics are busier than ever and that the on-road workforce must keep growing to meet demand. The government cites hundreds of recruits and a workforce increased by half as evidence that it is meeting this demand, so my question is: have the 53 paramedics in this recent intake fixed the staffing issues related to ambulance services, or is that simply all the government is prepared to pay for?

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Special Minister of State) (12:04): I thank Mrs Deeming for her question. I do not accept the premise of the question, however, and I do want to correct the record on a number of key facts. As the Labor government since 2014, we have invested more than $2 billion into our ambulance services in terms of additional funding, and over that period of time we have actually increased the workforce by 53 per cent. We currently have over 5600 on-road staff, 5677 to be exact, and according to the latest ROGS data, Victoria has more qualified ambulance officers than any other state or territory in the nation. I do want to thank those paramedics and MICAs that are on the road. They do an incredible job. They are also of course with Australia’s first paramedic practitioner roles out on the road, supporting Victorians with emergency care.

In terms of the relationship between our on-road crews and demand, there are a few things to say about that. We are still seeing record demand for our ambulance services across the state. I know that it has been particularly challenging in the last few weeks with a very late influenza A spike, and so there have been record call-outs. Again, we have a number of important programs in place to try to alleviate that pressure on the system, and as part of this year’s budget we have built on our investments, with an additional $50.7 million, which is supporting the secondary triage system. So that is really about when calls are coming in to 000, having ambulance paramedics on the phone, assessing whether or not there are options for alternative and safe care for those calls, and that has actually been seeing some pretty amazing results.

We are also continuing to invest in dispatch and delivery, as I have said, and also making sure that we are improving bed flow when people are arriving by ambulance at our emergency departments. So that additional investment is about dealing with some of the demand pressures which are not specifically related to how many ambos are on the road. It is more about the relationship between the numbers of calls coming through and our EDs across the system. I just want to acknowledge the extraordinary work that our ambos are doing at the moment, in a circumstance where there is record demand, and we will keep backing them in.

 Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:08): So demand is at a record high, but in a single quarter last year Ambulance Victoria attended about 100,000 code 1 cases and is only clearing about two-thirds of those within 15 minutes. And in the media the government’s answer has been recruitment statements – 294 paramedics last year, 53 in the first intake this year – but it will not say how long the queue for paramedic employment is behind those numbers. If demand for services is as high as the government says, why is the government not providing enough funding to adequately employ the necessary number of frontline workers to put an end to these issues?

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Special Minister of State) (12:08): I thank Mrs Deeming for her supplementary question. As I said, it is not one single factor that is contributing to the complexity and the demand pressures across the system at the moment. I have gone to the significant increases in the workforce that our government has provided investment for, and we will continue to make sure that we back our paramedics. But it is also about finding alternative care and safe care pathways for those people ringing 000 who may not need an emergency response. As well as what I have already gone through in my substantive answer, I would point out that the virtual emergency departments and Nurse-on-Call are other ways in which we are diverting people who may not need an emergency response so that the sickest Victorians can get access to ambulance care where necessary.