Response targets toughen

The St John Ambulance service is responding faster to lifethreatening incidents, but has warned lower priority cases may have to wait.

Compared to last year, the ambulance service responded to 9783 more immediately lifethreatening incidents within eight minutes.

Southland/otago had the fastest response rate in the country, arriving at 86.4 per cent of immediately life-threatening incidents calls within eight minutes.

Services in the Manawatu and Auckland regions each made it to 78.8 per cent of such jobs within that time.

St John Manawatu operations manager Steve Yanko said an ambulance’s response time could be the difference between life and death.

That meant lower priority events may have to go on the backburner.

‘‘We want to make sure the right ambulances are available – that might mean someone has to wait.’’

Emergency calls prioritised as they came in.

‘‘The expectation of the public is that an ambulance will scream out, lights and sirens. But things are changing, it is making sure we respond to the appropriate call.

‘‘It is no different to police, if someone has got a shot gun on the street, it is different to if someone has had their letterbox kicked in. were You’ve got to prioritise your work, you can’t run an ambulance service and exhaust your resources.’’

Yanko said responses to cardiac arrest incidents were also improving.

St John had plans in place to improve response times, though he noted officers could get tied up with other jobs which would delay them.

Sophie Kemp, of Palmerston North, had glowing praise for St John officers after they responded to a car crash that left her with a broken femur and shattered arm.

She was thrown from a car after it hit black ice on the Desert Rd last year.

Kemp said an ambulance showed up quickly and staff were supportive.

‘‘They kept me really comfortable, they kept me in good spirits and kept me calm.’’

Nationally, St John responded to immediately life-threatening incidents within eight minutes 77.6 per cent of the time, an improvement of 4.8 per cent on the previous year.

In rural areas, they responded to the same type of events within 12 minutes 67.9 per cent of the time, an improvement of 4.5 per cent on the previous year. The increased response times were the result of a new dispatch system, implemented throughout the country in 2012.

St John was also making more accurate assessments and prioritising 111 calls to target urgent ambulance responses to more immediately life-threatening events.