EMERGENCY ambulance response times have risen by the smallest of margins across Frankston and best practice targets for emergency call-outs are still being missed.
Data released by Ambulance Victoria shows 83.9 per cent of code one calls in 2015-16 across Frankston were responded to within 15 minutes.
The average response time in 2015-16 to 9695 incidents was 11 minutes, 25 seconds. This was a slight increase on an average response time of 11 minutes, 24 seconds to 9345 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 Frankston area has more than 135,000 residents.
Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy in April said the Labor state government included $144 million “to fix the ambulance system after four years of crisis” in its first budget and highlighted statewide response time improvements.
“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 subsequently 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.
