The impact of offload delays, population growth and other factors that have plagued the region's paramedic services over the last few years is getting better but the numbers are far from sustainable according to a mid-year performance report.
From January to June 2023, paramedics responded in ambulances 34,161 times, equating to 286 fewer vehicle responses, or a one per cent decrease, compared to the same period in 2022.
Despite the slight decrease in the first half of the year, call volume growth remains in alignment with the Paramedic Services’ Master Plan high growth scenario, says a report headed to the region's community and health services committee this week.
Ambulance utilization between January and June decreased from 48 per cent to 44 per cent compared to January to June 2022, which is an improvement but remained well above the recommend threshold of 35 per cent.
"Current unit utilization levels need to continue to decrease to become sustainable."
Although there was a 10 per cent reduction in the number of ambulance days lost to offload delays at area hospitals in the first half of 2023 compared to the first half of 2022, the number of days lost remains double the five-year pre-pandemic 118 day average for January to June.
To date, 235 ambulance days have been lost to offload delay in 2023, the equivalent of losing nearly three 12-hour ambulance shifts per day to offload delay.
The delay contributed to 38 code red events in the first half of the year compared to 59 events in 2022. That's a a 36 per cent decrease.
The median length of those code reds was 12 minutes 50 seconds, 58 seconds shorter than in year-to-date 2022.
Total time spent in code red from January to June increased 10 per cent from 15 hours in 2022 to 17 hours in 2023, but staff attribute much of the increase to "one very long code red event in January 2023."
For year-to-date 2023, response times for the 80th percentile of the most urgent calls were an average of 9 minutes 3 seconds, five seconds faster compared to the same period in 2022.
