Ambulance response times continue to improve and more elective surgeries are being done on time than ever before, thanks to record investment in our health system by the Andrews Labor Government.

Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Jill Hennessy today released the Victorian Health Services and Ambulance Victoria Performance Data for Quarter Two 2017-2018, which showed ambulances and our hospitals kept up with demand despite enduring Australia’s worst flu season.

The latest data finds that:

• 4 per cent of Code 1 ambulances are arriving within 15 minutes of call-out, compared with 76 per cent a year earlier and miles ahead of the 73.7 per cent from when the Liberals were last in government – it’s Victoria’s best Quarter Two in nine years.
• Ambulances across the state are getting to life threatening emergencies more than a minute-and-a-quarter faster compared to last year’s result – at an average of 11 minutes 42 seconds.
• 47,911 elective surgeries were performed in the last quarter, 2,729 more surgeries than when the Liberals were last in power.
• 473,441 patients were admitted to hospital – the highest number ever recorded – exceeding admissions at the same time a year ago, when hospitals were hit hard by Victoria’s thunderstorm asthma event.

In the City of Greater Dandenong, we are seeing significant improvement, with 88.1 per cent of ambulances now arriving within 15 minutes for Code One emergencies, up from 83.2 per cent compared to a year earlier.

This means the average time for an ambulance to reach the scene of a Code One emergency in Dandenong over the same period has improved from 11:29 minutes to 10:45.

These results follow the Labor Government’s record funding boosts and major health reforms, which are delivering more ambulances more quickly, and helping save lives.

A Productivity Commission Report released this week shows that Victoria is the only state in Australia to improve ambulance response times over the past year.

This is in stark contrast to the previous Liberal Government, which went to war with paramedics, ripped $1 billion out of our hospitals, and left Victoria as the worst performing state on the Australian mainland.

For Dandenong Hospital, we are seeing positive results. The hospital:

• Admitted 9,135 emergency patients in the 3 months to the end of December – up from 9,118 emergency admissions in the previous 3 months.
• Treated 73 per cent of Category 2 patients within 10 minutes of arrival at the ED in the 3 months to the end of December – up from 65 per cent in the previous quarter.
• Treated 67 per cent of all emergency patients within the benchmark time in the 3 months to the end of December – up from 61 per cent in the previous 3 months.
• Treated half of the hospital’s emergency department patients within 22 minutes – better than the 26-minute median in the previous three months.
• Completed the transfer of 72.3 per cent of patients who arrived at the hospital in an ambulance in the December quarter within the target of 40 minutes, up on its 63.9 per cent transfer rate in the previous quarter.

• Treated half of the hospital’s Category 1 elective surgery patients within seven days – well under the 30-day benchmark.