The Victorian Health and Human Services and Ambulance Victoria performance data for the March quarter, released yesterday, showed Greater Shepparton ambulances arrived in an average 10 minutes and 32 seconds, an improvement on the 10 minutes and 46 seconds arrival time last year.
During the quarter, Greater Shepparton ambulances responded to 1021 Code 1 calls, an increase on the 886 call-outs in the 2018 March quarter.
Of these, 1021 Code 1 calls, 86.6 per cent of ambulances arrived within 15 minutes, which was an improvement on the 84.5 per cent from the year before.
The improvement was despite a strong increase in demand, which Ambulance Victoria chief executive associate professor Tony Walker said followed transformational reforms and significant investment in ambulance services.
‘‘This investment has included the deployment of an additional 450 paramedics across the state as part of a $500million investment that includes extra vehicles, new resources, and new and upgraded ambulance branches,’’ he said.
‘‘Improved response times are leading to improved patient outcomes, especially for cardiac arrest, stroke and trauma patients.’’
The data also showed an improvement in public health services across Victoria.
During the quarter, Goulburn Valley Health performed 216 more elective surgeries than a year earlier and treated 93.6 per cent of all elective surgery patients within their benchmark times, an improvement of 2.2 per cent.
Along with this, more than half of Shepparton’s Category 1 urgent elective patients were treated within nine days, well under the benchmark target of 30 days.
Victorian Health and Ambulance Services Minister Jenny Mikakos welcomed the new data, praising the work of local health professionals around the state.
‘‘We can thank our local hard-working paramedics, doctors, nurses and other health professionals for continuing to improve our health and emergency services,’’ she said.
‘‘Our ambulance services are transporting more urgent cases and our hospitals are treating more patients.’’
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