Ambulance response times rise for priority incidents as call-outs for paramedics increase

Statistics released by the Bureau of Health Information this week as part of their Healthcare Quarterly report for 2019 show ambulances in the Orange region, which encompasses Carcoar and Mandurama up towards Cumnock, had 3067 responses to call-outs in the first three months of 2019.

The number is 300 more than the same period in 2018, marking a 10.8 per cent increase in response times.

There were 2205 incidents recorded in that timeframe, 150 or 7.3 per cent more than January to March 2018, while ambulances in the region have transported patients 4.4 per cent more often.

Responses to emergency calls, which involve calls to patients who are unconscious or suffering haemorrhage, chest or neck injuries were on average 30 seconds slower compared to the same period 12 months beforehand.

The median response times for priority one emergency calls, measured from the time the call was first placed in the queue to the time the first vehicle arrived on scene, was 10 minutes and six seconds.

However 10 per cent of those 1204 high priority call-outs took more than 23 and a half minutes to have ambulance officers on the scene, an increase of a minute.

Responses times to the very highest priority cases, including cardiac or respiratory arrest and life-threatening cases, dipped across the Central West.

The average response times to "Priority 1A" cases - of which there were 65 in Orange - were only recorded across the whole Central West, encompassing Mudgee, Bathurst, Cowra, Dubbo and the Lachlan Valley due to the small numbers of those incidents skewing data.

Those extremely high priority cases averaged six minutes and 40 seconds, which shaved nearly 50 seconds off the response time from the previous 12 months.

However, responses to priority two cases, which are described by the report as "urgent responses without 'lights and sirens' within specified timeframes" such as abdominal pain, blew out by nearly two minutes on average, with the slowest 10 per cent of cases taking nearly 40 minutes from the time the call was placed in the queue to the time the first vehicle arrived on scene.

The 37-minute wait for the slowest of the 1418 priority two cases was six minutes and 42 seconds slower than the 12 months beforehand.

However, just under 70 per cent of ambulances - 69.1 per cent - were on the scene within the first 15 minutes of priority one calls being answered by operators.