Legislative Council: Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Contents

Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question regarding ambulance ramping.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Screenshots of the ambulance dashboard collected over the past seven weeks showed the ambulance dashboard has remained static on exactly the same set of numbers for ambulance delays outside of hospitals. My question to the minister is: why has the ambulance dashboard, that is designed to publicly report real-time ambulance waiting times, been frozen for the last seven weeks and, minister, when were you first informed of this and was this a deliberate decision so that the public wouldn't know about ramping?

The Hon. R.P. Wortley interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley! The minister has the call and will be heard in silence.

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:32): If this is the case, it has not been brought to my attention, but my understanding is that there are four live dashboards that are public facing in the health service. Two of those are, if you like, sister dashboards. One is the emergency department dashboard and one is the Ambulance Service dashboard. My understanding is that both the ED dashboard and the Ambulance Service dashboard convey delays, both inside the ED and in terms of ambulance arrivals. But I certainly will make inquiries to see whether the honourable member's claim is the case and, if it is the case, the reason for it.