St John Ambulance NT: Highest ambulance workforce attrition rate in the country

The rate of paramedics leaving the Territory is the highest in the country. But St John NT have a plan to tackle the worker decline.

AMBULANCE workforce attrition in the Territory is the worst in the country, with 16.6 per cent of staff leaving in 2020/21.

But the rate last year was less than that of 2019/20.

NT parademics were more than five times more likely to leave the force to the next highest state, with WA’s attrition rate at 5 per cent and every other region at 3 per cent or lower.

In 2019/20, the number of staff leaving peaked at 20.2 per cent.

The report notes that the high rate of attrition within the Territory “can be attributed to a relatively small workforce and some graduates returning to their home state on completion of their internship.”

“We all know that the NT has a highly transient workforce, similar results can be found with the public service, doctors, nurses and the police force in the NT,” Ambulance director Andrew Thomas said.

“Within the ambulance service we recruit graduates bi-annually from across Australia and a proportion of them return to their home state on completion of their internship every year.

In recent years we have also experienced high levels of recruitment by interstate services seeking qualified paramedics and, due to COVID-19, we know that some staff have chosen to return to their home state to be nearer to family and friends,” he said.

However Mr Thomas said a local paramedicine degree will make a big difference.

“St John NT has worked closely with Charles Darwin and Flinders universities to establish paramedicine degrees in the Territory so that we can train our own and have staff who are supported by a local family network.

“This is extremely important for developing a local sustainable workforce, our latest intake of interns has a few people who grew up in the Territory, but went away to study. In the future they won’t need to do this,” he said.

St John NT looking for more paramedics

FOLLOWING the announcement of government funding for an additional 45 employees, St John NT are working towards recruiting more staff.

St John NT director of ambulance services Andrew Thomas said a variety of new positions were ready to be filled like road ambulance officers or communication roles.

“We’ve got adverts out the moment across Australia recruiting and that’s looking for both qualified paramedics intensive Care Paramedics from other services or other places,” Mr Thomas told ABC Darwin.

He said St John NT were looking for registered paramedics but also “gaining and bringing people on as intern paramedics”.

“Those that have completed the three year paramedic degree and are looking to start the paramedic career, we run an intern program up here as well,” Mr Thomas said.

“So we are looking for a mix of both qualified and interns.”

St John NT are recruiting 30 paramedics between now and September. Picture: Floss Adams.

In an job ad posted on Seek, St John Ambulance Australia said: “we are recruiting 30 paramedics between now and September for both graduate and qualified positions in Darwin, Alice Springs and Katherine with opportunities to also work in Nhulunbuy and Tennant Creek”.

Mr Thomas congratulated his St John NT ambo crew for their dedication for their job even through extreme climates.

“In terms of dealing with the current situation and the added impacts of wearing PPE in the in the hot and humid conditions, I think they’ve been doing great and we will continue to maintain deliver services across the territory,” he said.

“It’s been a tough and difficult time for all of our staff across the territory and that the staff have been amazing and that’s not just the on road paramedics but it’s all our support staff as well.”

Ambulance response times at five-year high

AMBULANCE response times across the Territory have stretched out to the longest in five years, with patients waiting on average more than 21 minutes to receive help.

Latest data from the Australian Productivity Commission shows that the average wait time for an ambulance was 21.6 minutes in 2020/21 for both city and Territory-wide incidents.

It’s up from 17.8 mins in 2019/20, 18.5 mins in 2018/19 and 19.6 mins in 2017/18.

It is only the second time in 10 years the wait has been longer than 20 minutes, with 2016/17 figures being 23.2 minutes.

St John Ambulance NT director of ambulance services Andrew Thomas said there were a myriad of factors that affected the latest response times.

St John Ambulance Director of ambulance services Andrew Thomas. Picture: Katrina Bridgeford.

“St John NT has seen increasing delays in response times to patients over the past 12 months, particularly in the Darwin region, due to a number of factors that have been experienced across Australia, namely; resourcing, an increasing workload, case duration times extending due to PPE use and decontamination, and hospital procedural changes for Covid resulting in increased handover times,” he said.

Despite the increasing waits, the NT’s response time is the fourth fastest in the country, beating out New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.

Mr Thomas said St John was working with government and hospitals to address some of the shortfalls leading to the longer wait.

“To mitigate response delays we are working with the Department of Health and the hospitals to address resourcing and improving processes for greater efficiencies,” he said.

“For example, the Northern Territory Government recently announced additional funding of $7.2m for ambulance staff in response to the pandemic, which will enable us to bolster resources across the Territory.”

“We are working with the hospitals for more efficient ways of admitting emergency patients and improved processes for managing demand peaks such as our critical response units providing a primary response to patients prior to transport crews arriving on scene.”

United Workers Union NT secretary Erina Early called for more ambulances and ambulance crews to match the Territory’s population. Picture: Che Chorley

United Workers Union NT secretary Erina Early said there were urgent changes needed to the delivery of emergency services in the Territory.

“We need one emergency ambulance for every 20,000 Territorians — The NT does not have enough ambulances and crews.

“If our NT ambulance service was run by Government, they would have to be made accountable for response times,” she said.

Ms Early also urged the public to treat paramedics with respect, with assaults among the workforce also increasing.

“Paramedics are dealing with regular assaults/abuse and chronic fatigue due to their workloads.”

“What we need is to support government-run ambulance service, stop assaulting those who are here to help us, more funding for more crews, and more facilities that are fit for service,” she said.

Originally published as St John Ambulance NT: Highest ambulance workforce attrition rate in the country