‘We’re not perfect’: Ambulance chief Joe Acker says mistakes are made sometimes

The head of Ambulance Tasmania has defended his embattled staff but concedes the service “has not been meeting the expectations of the community”. LATEST >>

The head of Ambulance Tasmania Joe Acker has defended his embattled staff – who handle more than 300 calls a day – but concedes the service “has not been meeting the expectations of the community”.

Mr Acker is intent on confronting the challenges including Tasmania having the longest ambulance response times in Australia, concerns that a man died waiting seven hours for an ambulance and high rates of depression among paramedics.

“I think it’s really unfair that the ambulance service gets as much criticism as it does because that’s a significant disservice to the incredible paramedics, emergency call takers, dispatchers, volunteer ambulance officers and State Service staff,” he said.

“Everybody here is so passionate about the important work they do.

“It’s been unfair, but I think in some ways it’s justified.

“It’s impossible to meet the expectations of the community, because the systems have changed so significantly.

“The call volume has become almost unsustainable.”

Calls are up from around 250 per day last year and Mr Acker believes more people are calling an ambulance as the shortage of GPs and primary care take its toll.

SUN TAS. Ambulance Tasmania chief Joe Acker at the Hobart station. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

One day this week, for example, 15 patients from Triabunna to Dover were waiting for an ambulance with transfer and care delays at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

“We have more calls than we can respond to so we rely on people to make decisions that are really difficult and judgments on which patients need the ambulance the quickest.

“It breaks my heart when I know we can’t respond quickly.

“Only about five per cent of calls are immediate life threatening emergencies and we’re managing risk every single day.

“But we’re not perfect. We’re going to make mistakes.

“Every single hour of every single day, somebody’s making a decision that most of the time is the right decision.

“Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we’ve made the wrong decision

“Many of those calls don’t need care in the emergency department, they need different care.”

“So that’s why we are changing the way we do business and trying to manage those calls safer and better.

“We’re using validated triage tools and secondary triage and having clinicians and nurses answer those calls.

Sam Keating dispatcher with Joe Acker in the operations call room. Ambulance Tasmania chief Joe Acker at the Hobart station. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

“90 to 95% of the work we do doesn’t require immediate resuscitation, or major life-saving intervention.

“It requires dealing with people with a mental health crisis, helping a palliative care patient have a good death at home, dealing with somebody who’s just got some anxiety or is lonely, somebody who couldn’t get a GP that has maybe an infection that only needs a script for antibiotics.”

Mr Acker defends poor response times and some patients not receiving calls back to check on their conditions.

“We need to learn from those incidents that we didn’t manage perfectly, and get better.

Tasmania has the most proportion of people living outside of major cities of any other state and the other big problem is we only have four hospitals that we’re primarily taking patients to

While he says government funding has been “exceptional” he would like more ambulances and an end to ramping at emergency departments.

Mr Acker wants staff to feel valued, more women in leadership roles and changes to the way volunteers work to keep them in their local communities.

“What we heard loud and clear is our staff don’t feel supported by their managers and leaders and I’ve been dealing with that.

“We’ve moved some people on, we challenge them to either align with our values or seek employment other places.”

Originally published as ‘We’re not perfect’: Ambulance chief Joe Acker says mistakes are made sometimes