KEY POINTS:
All cities should have ambulances with two crew on board within three years and all large towns within four years, a parliamentary committee said today.
An inquiry into ambulance services by the health select committee has made 14 recommendations calling for ambulance standards to be improved.
The MPs said single crew call outs should stop, but it would take time for more staff to be put in place. It said all cities and towns of more than 15,000 people should have them within four years.
The Order of St John, which is the largest ambulance service provider covering 86 per cent of the population, estimated it would require $53 million more a year to double-crew all its callouts.
The majority of this money ($40 million) would be needed to increase its frontline staff from 800 to 1200.
The Health Ministry said the large number of volunteers saved about $33 million a year and it estimated double crewing would cost $18 million a year.
The inquiry followed calls by the Ambulance Association that coverage was inadequate, ad hoc and a large number of single crew callouts was putting people at risk.
There have been reports of families of people suffering from heart attacks or witnesses at scenes of accidents being asked to drive ambulances to hospital while a paramedic helps the patient.
MPs said they were concerned that 70 per cent of emergency callouts were responded to by single crew ambulances
"This may result in sub-optimal care for the patient and safety concerns for the ambulance officer," the report said.
"We accept that for patient safety and optimal patient care call outs should be double crewed. However, we accept that current shortages of ambulance officers and paramedics make this impracticable in the immediate future," the report said.
They recommended the three and four year targets be taken up by the Government.
"We realise that the nature of the workforce will mean that there is a mixture of paid and volunteer officers achieving this goals."
The report called for clinical standards to be applied to ambulance services and paramedics to become registered medical practitioners under health laws.
MPs said funding to ambulance services through the Ministry of Health and ACC was complicated and confusing.
For instance, all callouts created costs, but ambulance services were only paid if a live person was transported to hospital for treatment after a traffic accident.
Some have called for a single national ambulance service, but the MPs stopped short of recommending that, saying there should be greater co-operation and collaboration.
MPs said streamlining funding and setting up a national standards body would go some way to achieving this.
The report noted that the relationship between St John and Wellington Free Ambulance was marked more by competition than co-operation and this should stop.
Committee chairwoman Sue Kedgley said she agreed with the report, but said it should have gone further.
The Green MP believed more money was needed to sort out a desperate situation that largely relied on volunteers.
"No ambulance officer should have to choose between treating a patient and driving the ambulance to hospital," Ms Kedgley said.
Health Minister David Cunliffe said the report seemed to be well reasoned and would be given "very serious consideration" by the Government.
The Government had a policy of moving towards double crewing ambulances as priorities allowed.
"It's not an inexpensive step... it is definitely an additional resource and the health budget is pretty stretched," Mr Cunliffe said.
- NZPA
