Parliamentary report includes $30 million for paid paramedics in regional WA for St John Ambulance

A report tabled in Parliament has shed more light on new State Government expectations likely to bring the Capes’ volunteer-driven ambulance service more in line with metropolitan Perth. While Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson’s office did not respond to Times inquiries seeking more detail on any plans to hire more paid paramedics to bolster the region’s overworked St John Ambulance volunteers, the A New Century report included specific recommendations catering to the South West. The contentious “best endeavours” model for sub-centres including Margaret River, Augusta and Dunsborough, which did not have full-time paramedics, looked likely to change. St John would need to meet specific targets for response times, with the report finding the existing model “does not guarantee regional communities have access to ambulances services”. The report also said the Health Department had no real-time monitoring of ambulance availability in many regional areas, and St John’s approach towards assigned career paramedics was “not satisfactory”. The Parliamentary committee recommended key performance indicators (KPIs) “for regional ambulance dispatch times and response times and require ambulance service providers to meet these indicators”. St John also had “to reduce inequity between metropolitan and regional WA” and “investigate extending the current ambulance service delivery model in regional areas with a hybrid model where appropriate”. “Continued reliance on volunteers to perform the majority of ambulance services in regional WA is not sustainable,” the report said. It noted a $30 million commitment in the 2022-23 State Budget “provides an opportunity to expand the number of career paramedics whilst also piloting innovative workforce models”. There were also moves to lighten the workload on volunteers increasingly caught up in patient transfers rather than emergency work, with St John’s right for call on those contracts potentially opened to cheaper providers. Local doctors and Opposition leader Mia Davies previously aired serious concerns about the rising workload on ambulance volunteers. Last week, the Minister said additional funding for the deployment of more career paramedics could be needed. The report recommended developing a policy “to guide establishment of regional career sub-centres”. Margaret River’s St John sub-centre chair Frank Edwards, a former City of Perth chief executive, resigned in November, but declined to comment on the Times inquiries. New chair Colin Russell referred inquiries to St John. A St John spokeswoman said the organisation was working through the detail of the report with WA Health.