Paramedics are getting to medical emergencies in Brimbank more quickly despite receiving about three per cent more “code 1” calls each year.
New figures from Ambulance Victoria on its service performance for the 2015-16 year, released last week, reveal paramedics responded to 75.2 per cent of all code one emergencies across the state within 15 minutes, up from 74.3 per cent the year before.
In Brimbank, the figures were even better, with 78.7 per cent of all code 1 calls responded to within 15 minutes, an improvement of 2.1 per cent on the 2014-15 year. This is despite the number of code 1 calls jumping to 11,058 from 10,723 in the previous 12 months.
Ambulance Victoria has set a target of responding to 85 per cent of all code 1 incidents within 15 minutes. Code 1 incidents require urgent paramedic and hospital care, while code 2 incidents are acute and time sensitive but do not require a “lights and sirens” response.
Ambulance Victoria’s emergency operations executive director Mick Stephenson said the latest data showed paramedics were responding faster to the most critical cases in Brimbank, in an average of 12 minutes and 37 seconds, an improvement of 11 seconds on the year before. He said new data showing response time for the March quarter this year show an even greater improvement.
“In the first three months of this year we have reached 88.4 per cent of code 1 cases in Brimbank within the target of 15 minutes, in an average of 10 minutes and 32 seconds,” Mr Stephenson said. “The same time last year we reached 81.9 per cent of code 1 cases within the target of 15 minutes; resulting in a 6.5 per cent improvement this year.”
He said response times were likely to shorten when the Brimbank “super response centre” and the Taylors Lakes 24-hour ambulance station were built. The state government announced that it would buy land for the two new centres in December last year.
The announcements were part of a $500 million investment into ambulance services that will add 450 paramedics, put more new ambulances on the road and build new and upgraded stations across the state.
