By Richard Willingham and State Political Correspondent
The state's auditor has found the triple-0 service failed to dispatch the highest priority emergency calls to ambulances in an acceptable time, and has also raised concerns about the reliability of technology used by emergency services.
And the ongoing controversy of ambulance response times was given a human face with the parents of the late three-year-old Emmy Boyle - who waited 23 minutes for an ambulance to reached her family's Gowanbrae home after she was found in the bath - attending Parliament urging for changes to fix the system.
Ambulance response times continue to be a controversy dogging the state government.Credit: Angela Wylie
"If we can even get them to think just for a moment, hopefully that will be a catalyst for change," mother Pauline Boyle said.
Authorities are investigating but it has been reported there was an error with the priority the case was given.
The pair watched question time where Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews used the case to call on Premier Denis Napthine to finally admit there was a crisis in Ambulance Victoria.
Auditor-General John Doyle's report into the communications used by emergency services uncovered concerns including its ability to meet demand during major events.
Among Mr Doyle's finding was that the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) was not meeting the standard that 90 per cent of code 1 calls – the most serious - be dispatched within 150 seconds.
ESTA has only managed to dispatch 77 per cent of these calls in the allotted time in metro areas and just 75 per cent in rural areas.
Problems with the call-taking script, a system of questions dispatchers ask callers to determine the priority of their emergency, were also identified.
The report found that the script structure had led to an increase in the top emergency "Priority 0" responses. A review of the script has been recommended.
The Auditor-General also found that ESTA was failing to predict the likely increase in demand for call-taking during major incidents, which could result in delays at a time of "stress across the community".
"ESTA will be challenged to meet its performance standards. Given the growth in demand for its services is currently 3 per cent each year, this is concerning," Mr Doyle said.
The review also found that some metropolitan police radio channels were becoming congested when Protective Services Officers were on duty at railway stations. This is being reviewed by police.
The computer-aided dispatch (CAD) also came under scrutiny with Mr Doyle finding the system had a "history of failure", was using outdated software, and had not been upgraded due to industrial action.
ESTA says the CAD system has been upgraded successfully since the audit and it is working to improve dispatch responses.
Concerns were also raised about the integrity of the radio system used by country police, with Mr Doyle saying it was a "safety risk for police" because it could easily be monitored by radio scanners.
Over the past 18 months the ESTA system has been hit five times by significant technical failures forcing the use of a back-up manual "card-based" system, which he deemed was unsatisfactory and affected response times.
Authorities said they were working on improving services.
In question time, Dr Napthine said Emmy's death was a tragedy. But in response to calls from the opposition for the full release of all response-time data and to admit the system was broken, he responded that his government had invested a record amount in Ambulance Victoria and outcomes for cardiac arrests and strokes had improved.
Shadow Emergency Services Minister Wade Noonan said response times under the Liberal government were worse than they have ever been.