Ambulance Victoria fails to meet targets as ramping wreaks havoc

Ambulance Victoria is failing to reach urgent care cases within a 15-minute timeframe as ramping continues to wreak havoc on the state’s struggling health system.

Ambulance Victoria is failing to meet its key target of getting to priority code-one callouts within its 15-minute benchmark, as ramping continues to wreak havoc on the state’s embattled health system.

The Andrews government on Friday released quarterly data from the Victorian Agency for Health Information (VAHI) which assessed the performance of the state’s embattled health sector between April and June this year.

Paramedics responded to just 62 per cent of cases requiring urgent care within the 15-minute timeframe, while only 61 per cent patients were offloaded from ambulances to the emergency department within 40 minutes.

More than 3500 people spent longer than 24 hours inside the emergency room waiting to be transferred to a ward — double the number of people who waited for that long during the same period last year.

Between April and June this year, more than 70,000 Victorians were languishing in pain on the elective surgery wait list.

Right now, 2527 Victorians are waiting for urgent surgery. The government maintains there are no delays in performing Category 1 surgeries.

In the past quarter, 16,987 Category 1 patients received care within the clinically recommended time of 30 days.

Three people from Wangaratta requiring urgent surgery waited longer than this timeframe. The government said this was due to their clinician being unwell.

Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas says the government has establisedh patient support units at 23 hospitals that maintain regular contact with people stuck on the wait list.

At the Royal Children’s Hospital, 76 children - who were deemed to be urgent Category 1 patients - are waiting for surgery, an increase from 44 in the quarter ending March this year.

Over the past year, 35,405 people were removed from the waitlist without having their surgery carried out.

Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said the government had established patient support units at 23 hospitals that maintain regular contact with people stuck on the waitlist.

“There are a range of reasons why people may be taken off the planned surgery list but I can assure you, because I’ve checked on this, no one was removed because they did not receive life threatening surgery,” she said.

”What we’re discovering is that there are a range of people for whom surgery is not the answer.”

Asked if it was possible that some of these people died while waiting in pain, Ms Thomas said: “Let me be absolutely clear about this ... All of our category one patients who are most critically ill, 99.8 per cent of them, received their treatment within the clinically recommended time,” she said.

She acknowledged that some people may have gone interstate or overseas to have their surgeries carried out quicker.

“People may make their own choices about where they access care, absolutely,” she said.

The current median waiting time for elective surgery in Victoria is 35 days.

Almost 10 percent of people waiting for surgery were waiting longer than a year.

Nearly 50,678 patients received treatment in the last quarter alone, but just over three quarters (76.4 per cent) of elective surgery patients were treated within the clinically recommended timeframe.

Ambulance Victoria services are still in huge demand. Picture: David Geraghty

Meanwhile, Ambulance Victoria services continue to experience major demand, with the last quarter the third busiest on record.

Only 61.7 per cent of the 97,509 Code One cases across the three month period were responded to within the 15 minute benchmark.

Australasian College for Emergency Medicine Victorian chair Belinda Hibble said the data represented a “distress signal from a crumbling health system”.

Dr Hibble said it was concerning and dangerous that the number of people waiting more than 24 hours in overcrowded EDs had doubled in 12 months.

“The Victorian target for the number of patients who have stayed in an emergency department for more than 24 hours is zero. But over 3500 people were stuck in the ED for over 24 hours in the last quarter,” she said.

“The aim is zero because long waits are dangerous, particularly for people experiencing mental health issues, frail aged people, and those with complex care needs.

“Long waits for care also increase delays and risk for all patients, and add pressure to staff, who are already working beyond their capacity to manage the large number of people requiring complex care.”

The Australian College for Emergency Medicine recently called for a security guard to be posted in every ED amid reports of high levels of aggression.

Ambulance Services Minister Gabrielle Williams said Ambulance Victoria is continuing to experience “significant strain”, with demand 30 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels.

“That means somewhere in the order of 1000 lights and sirens responses each and every day, up from about 800 a day four or five years ago,” she said.

“We have quite significant pressures on our emergency care system, particularly Ambulance Victoria.”

Ms Thomas said the number of people presenting to emergency departments was at record levels. In the past year almost 2 million people turned up to the ED.

“The most life threatening cases will always be seen first,” she said.

Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said the data demonstrated a health system that was still in crisis.

“These figures are a huge concern and should be a huge concern to every Victorian,” she said.

“Despite the government’s spin and rhetoric, (the system) is not improving.

“You can’t keep telling Victorians that you are fixing a system when it is getting worse.”