SA government celebrates improvement in ambulance response times – but opposition says data is a distraction

While persistently high ramping levels continue to plague the government – which promised to fix the crisis – there is good news on one other health metric.

Nearly 2300 more South Australians who called for an ambulance were reached on time last month when compared with the Liberals’ last January in office.

Latest data from SA Ambulance Service showed an extra 2277 patients in life-threatening priority one (emergency) and priority two (urgent) cases in metro Adelaide were reached on time in January.

But the Liberal opposition has accused the government of using the data as a distraction from its failed pledge to fix ramping.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and Health Minister Chris Picton announced the data at a press conference in front of 2277 paper figures.

More South Australians in life-threatening emergencies are being helped by our Government’s investments in the ambulance service and the health system. pic.twitter.com/IWGOmveGFb

— Peter Malinauskas (@PMalinauskasMP) February 7, 2024

Mr Malinauskas said, under the Liberals, there was a two-in-three chance that an ambulance would not show up on time.

“Now, thanks to the investments the Malinauskas Labor Government is making, there’s a two-in-three chance the ambulance will arrive on time,” he said.

Mr Picton said the government has put more than 170 extra ambos on the road and hired more than 550 extra health staff above attrition since its election in March 2022.

Premier Peter Malinauskas’s big election pledge was to fix ramping. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ben Clark

“We still have more investments to come – more doctors, nurses, ambos and hospital beds, including 150 inpatient beds to open this year alone to help improve patient flow and reduce bed-block,” he said.

SA Ambulance Service aims to attend to 60 per cent of priority one calls within eight minutes, and attend to 90 per cent of priority two calls within 16 minutes.

The January data shows 71.5 per cent of priority one and 65.1 per cent of priority two callouts were reached on time.

Opposition Leader David Speirs said the latest Report on Government Services showed that South Australia still had the worst ambulance response times in the country.

He accused Mr Malinauskas of trying to veer from the “fix the ramping crisis” metric he had set for his government.

“While the government and Peter Malinauskas are putting huge emphasis on ambulance response times and what they’re doing to fix that, that wasn’t what they took to the last election,” he said.

“Their primary election commitment was to fix ramping – that’s gotten completely out of control.”

Latest ramping data showed ambulances spent 3960 hours waiting outside hospital emergency departments in January – an increase from 3,595 in December.