AMBULANCE response times have marginally improved in Kingston but are still falling short of best practice targets for emergency call-outs.
Data released by Ambulance Victoria shows 84.4 per cent of code one calls in 2015-16 were responded to within 15 minutes.
The average response time in 2015-16 to 8142 incidents was 11 minutes, 32 seconds. This was an improvement on an average response time of 11 minutes, 37 seconds to 8034 incidents in 2014-15.
The Ambulance Victoria target for under 15 minutes response times for areas with a population greater than 7500 is 90 per cent.
The Kingston area has more than 154,000 residents.
Despite the failure to meet the 90 per cent benchmark, Mordialloc Labor MP Tim Richardson was upbeat about ambulance response times.
“City of Kingston patients experiencing life-threatening conditions can have every confidence they will receive faster responses from paramedics today than they did under the previous government,” Mr Richardson said in a statement.
“These improvements have occurred in conjunction with a growing demand for ambulances.”
Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy in April said the state government included $144 million “to fix the ambulance system after four years of crisis” in its first budget.
“With ambulance response times now the best they have been in five years, this shows what can be achieved by working together with our paramedics – instead of declaring war on them like the Liberals did,” Ms Hennessy said in a statement this month.
Liberal opposition health spokeswoman Mary Wooldridge said ambulance services are not improving in line with increased funding.
“Before the last election, Daniel Andrews claimed ambulance response times were in crisis and said he would fix it,” Ms Wooldridge said.
“After nearly two years as Premier, he is nowhere near his target, with response times similar to what they were under the previous government when Daniel Andrews claimed it was a crisis.”
In 2014, when the previous Coalition state government was in power, Ambulance Victoria refused to release response times categorised by local government area and instead only provided statewide figures.
Ambulance Victoria’s board was axed and replaced after Labor’s state election win in November 2014.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 16 November 2016
