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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-19 Daily Xml
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Ambulance Response Times

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier seen a copy of the full review and notes completed by the South Australian Ambulance Service into the death of Eddie?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:09): The government was very pleased to receive the report and the review that was conducted by SAAS. Naturally, it was a report given to the health minister, but being a matter of interest to the state, I have familiarised myself with that report. There were a number of recommendations that came out of the report that SAAS has, largely, accepted.

It was an important exercise. I think the review by SAAS demonstrates a couple of fundamental and key points. The first thing is that ambulance response times mattered in this instance. It also demonstrates that ramping informs ambulance response times—not exclusively, but it has an impact, which is why as a government we have a policy to address both. It's not just about fixing ramping and it's not just about fixing ambulance response times: both matter. I think, tragically, Eddie's circumstance demonstrates that.

The second thing is that, out of the review, we know that there were things that could be improved within SAAS in regard to the dispatch of ambulances under certain circumstances, and there were specific recommendations in that regard. I think there were also questions around the outbound calling effort from SAAS to the carer, which came up during the course of the review. We know that SAAS was making proactive outbound calls to Eddie's carer throughout the course of that day and into the evening, but there were issues in regard to how that was conducted and how that could be improved in the future, which were identified in the report and which SAAS is pursuing.

Amongst other issues that were contemplated throughout the course of the SAAS inquiry, triaging is an important element because of course, tragically, what we know in respect of Eddie's case is that once it was triaged from what was originally, from memory, a category 5—where it was resulting in a delayed response time—to a category 1, when it was triaged appropriately, the ambulance got there within a couple of minutes. I think, from memory, it was four minutes. I'm looking to the health minister: four minutes?

The Hon. C.J. Picton: Yes.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The ambulance got there within four minutes. Tragically, Eddie, I understand, was dead on arrival, which is heartbreaking because had that triage been different earlier, it might have been a very different outcome than what was otherwise the case.

The recommendations have been accepted by SAAS. We see that as being a worthwhile exercise under terrible circumstances. I think it's fair to say that the SAAS review is also a demonstration of why one of the first things this government has done is to reverse those cuts to the Ambulance Service and actually given it—more than just reversing the cuts, what we have also done is given it a dramatic funding boost. It's hard to know whether or not the outcome would have been different in the absence of those cuts, but as a government we do believe those cuts hurt the Ambulance Service. The evidence speaks for itself, which is why we have reversed those cuts with some of the biggest funding boosts the South Australian Ambulance Service has ever seen.

To be more specific about it, in regard to the Ambulance Service itself—because that's what the review was principally into—we now have an additional 171 ambos on the books within two years of coming to office. We have increased the number of people who are working in SAAS as ambos by 171 over and above attrition, with another 87 coming online this year. By the end of 2024, we will have 258 additional ambos on board than what was the case when we were elected.

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