The extra Patient Transfer Service Ambulance Officers are in addition to the 350 ambos already promised and being hired by the Malinauskas Labor Government.
They will improve the efficiency of moving low acuity patients requiring ambulance transport out of busy hospitals, including emergency departments.
The additional around the clock crewing will help ensure non-emergency patients who require ambulance transport are provided with a timely service, creating capacity within hospitals, and ensuring that our emergency departments and emergency ambulances are available for our most urgent cases.
The six-month trial of increased 24/7 patient transport service capacity will start next month, with the SA Ambulance Service continuing to manage the response and delivery of all elective, non-emergency and low acuity patients, which can also include the use of private patient transfer providers.
SAAS currently completes 720 Patient Transport Service transfers a week across the state, while many other transports occur through hospital engagement of private providers.
The recruitment of these 20 extra officers – on top of an existing 84 Patient Transfer Service Ambulance Officers including casuals – will help SAAS get patients who are medically ready home sooner while freeing up beds for others.
This will help to reduce the amount of patient transport work for which SA Health currently has to use private outsourced providers.
This is another step the Malinauskas Labor Government is taking to improve patient flow through our hospitals, while hiring more ambos to future proof the service.
The announcement comes as ground breaks on a second brand new ambulance station within a week – with work starting on the new Edwardstown station, just days after work began on Norwood’s new station.
It marks yet another milestone in the Government’s ambitious project to deliver 10 brand new ambulance stations that will house the state’s largest ever recruitment boost of frontline ambos.
The new station, being built at the Repat Health Precinct, will house the 16-person Edwardstown paramedic crew which came online last November as part of the Government’s quick actions to ease ambulance pressure.
It will also accommodate the 12 Emergency Support Service ambulance officers that are due to come online for the region in July 2024.
With a budget of $8 million, the new station is being built by Blu Built and is expected to be complete and operational by the end of next year.
An estimated 21 workers a day will be onsite during construction.
It will include training facilities and a garage to accommodate 4 ambulances and 2 light fleet, plus a carport for further fleet.
Site preparations will commence this week, with the concrete pour scheduled for early January.
Artist impressions can be found here.
As put by Chris Picton
These additional 20 ambulance officers will help move patients who are ready to go home out of hospital sooner.
Nobody wants to be stuck in hospital longer than they need to and it will also free up beds for others, improving flow across our hospitals.
It’s also an exciting day for Edwardstown as we break ground on our new, purpose-built ambulance station, which will help us reach patients in the community quicker.
As we put on more crews, like Edwardstown, we have seen significant improvements in response times. With more ambos, we are now getting to the most urgent patients on time.
While this is having a positive flow-on effect to lower priority jobs, we have found that more needs to be done to manage the transport of our non-emergency patients out of hospital. That’s where these extra 20 ambulance officers will help.
As put by SAAS Chief Executive Officer Rob Elliott
Under this new model for non-emergency ambulance transports, SAAS will pilot an approach which emphasises our performance based and coordinated approach to patient flow, in conjunction with all the metropolitan public hospitals.
This additional crewing will also enable us to relieve pressure on our emergency crews and will positively impact our patients of all priorities.
We thank our private providers who do a fantastic job in helping care for and transport our non-emergency patients during busy periods. These providers will continue to play a valuable part of our service delivery and will be engaged to assist during workload surges and for significant events, as well as some dedicated country transfers.
I am very excited to see the first station in the southern metropolitan area commencing and I am thrilled to see major milestones being achieved as we grow our service and improve response times.
The design and build of our new ambulance stations has been a huge project for our operational support teams to deliver. To see site works commencing on yet another site is a huge achievement.
