The South Australian parliament will be asked to legislate ambulance response times and require the government to report against those targets under a bill proposed by the South Australian Greens.
The legislation will be introduced this week amid ongoing ramping issues outside Adelaide’s major hospitals.
“Ending the ramping crisis was the centrepiece of Labor’s election campaign, yet one year on ambulances are still spending far too long stuck outside hospitals,” Greens SA health spokesperson Robert Simms said.
“Without clear, legislated targets it’s impossible to measure success and ensure that our health system is getting the resources it needs.”
The targets in the Greens’ bill are based on those stated in the South Australian Ambulance Service’s annual report.
They include responding to priority one cases within eight minutes 60 percent of the time and to priority two cases within 16 minutes 95 percent of the time.
The bill will require the health minister to publicly report each month to parliament and online on the performance against those targets and on what measures are being taken to achieve them.
The minister must also immediately advise the public when the ambulance service is running at capacity.
Simms said the Labor government and the previous Liberal government had not met the stated targets in recent years.
But on Monday, Health Minister Chris Picton said the latest SA Ambulance data showed that inroads were being made into improving response times.
Picton said there had been a rise in meeting priority one response times from 47 percent in January 2022 to 63 percent last month, above the stated target.
Priority two response times were also met in 53 per cent of cases last month, compared with 36 percent at the beginning of last year.
In its efforts to cut ramping, the government has also pointed to its moves to hire an extra 350 ambulance officers, bring on more ambulances, build new ambulance stations and upgrade others, and establish a new headquarters for the ambulance service.
