Rodney Stevens
The latest quarterly report from the Bureau of Health Information shows Ambulance NSW is struggling under the pressure of increasing demand, and worsening response times, says the Australian Paramedics Association.
The data shows that NSW Ambulance managed 291,463 incidents and 391,370 responses, the highest number of any quarter since BHI started reporting in 2010.
The news comes after on-call paramedics were cut from Yamba Ambulance Station from March 15 as part of Ambulance NSW’s $1.76 billion Strategic Workforce and Infrastructure Team SWIFT program.
The Australian Paramedics Association APA NSW emphasised that without smart solutions, things will continue to get worse.
APA (NSW) President Mr. Brett Simpson said, “The Government loves to complain about the cost of healthcare but refuses to invest in community-based solutions that provide patients early access to the care they need, keeping them out of the back of Ambulance and out of Hospitals.”
“At a time when expansion and development of NSW Ambulance programs that keep people out of the hospital and at home, like the Virtual Clinical Care Centre and Extended Care Paramedics, NSW Ambulance is mismanaging and gutting these programs,” he said.
The report data also shows worsening response times for P1As – the highest acuity incident with only 62.6% of P1As, receiving a response within the clinically recommended timeframe of 10 minutes.
“What this shows is that increases in staffing are not a silver bullet. If we can’t get the right care to our patients at the right time, then they will get sicker and sicker until their only option for care is an emergency department,” Mr. Simpson said.
“We are calling on the State and Federal Government to stop buck passing and start working on solutions.
“It’s not just better for our patients; it’s better for your budgets.”
But NSW Ambulance refutes these claims.
A NSW Ambulance spokesperson told the CV Independent the latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report (October to December 2024) shows NSW Ambulance clinicians and Control Centre staff continued to provide outstanding care to the community, despite record demand for ambulance services.
There were 391,370 NSW Ambulance responses in the final quarter of 2024, the most since BHI began reporting in 2010, and an increase of 11,665 responses, or 3.1 per cent, compared with the same period in 2023.
Of the 391,370 NSW Ambulance responses, more than half (198,546) were triaged as priority 1 (emergency response under lights and sirens), and 13,579 triaged as immediately life-threatening medical emergencies (priority 1A).
While the report shows a 7.9 per cent decrease in the number of priority 1A responses compared with the same quarter in 2023 (14,741), the reduction in this quarter can be attributed to a change in the way incidents are categorised to a more clinically appropriate category.
This change commenced on 13 November 2024 following a review of historical data, clinical consultation and benchmarking across other ambulance services.
NSW Ambulance also attended 291,463 incidents in the October to December 2024 quarter, the highest number since BHI reporting began and an increase of 7,436 incidents, or 2.6 per cent, compared with the same period in 2023.
Despite the record level of demand, the median response time for the priority 1A category was 8.4 minutes, which is within the 10-minute benchmark, and consistent with our response times for the same quarter last year.
An additional 2,500 staff are headed across NSW as part of the $1.76 billion Strategic Workforce and Infrastructure Team (SWIFT) program, including 500 paramedics to rural and regional areas, to boost emergency and mobile healthcare for our metropolitan and regional communities.
The SWIFT program is also delivering 30 new ambulance stations to help save lives and provide critical emergency care across NSW.