St John Media Statement 5 September 2007

St John welcomes Health Select Committee inquiry into ambulance services

St John today welcomed the announcement from the Health Select Committee that they will conduct an inquiry into the provision of ambulance services.

“We are confident that the inquiry will find that St John is delivering ambulance services to a high standard throughout New Zealand within available resources,” St John Chief Executive Jaimes Wood said today.

“We are also confident that the inquiry will find that more Crown funding should be committed to ambulance operations.”

“We have already requested the opportunity to make a submission to the Health Select Committee, which was granted last month, and look forward to providing our submission,” Mr Wood said.

“Today’s announcement will provide more depth and breadth than the Health Select Committee review to date. We welcome this initiative.”

Mr Wood said St John is in ongoing negotiations with the Ministry of Health regarding funding for St John ambulance services for the current financial year.

“We believe the most important requirement is for a long term plan – and a commitment to funding of ambulance services to enable planning and development, and contracts that run for longer than the current one year period.”

“We have proposed that the Ministry of Health provide the funding to increase ambulance operations personnel by around 70 a year over a six to eight year timeframe – to build capacity to meet demand and minimise single crewing,” Mr Wood said.

St John has been advocating for some time for an increase in funding of ambulance activity for primary reasons linked to a constant growth in demand and the need to fully (double) crew ambulances.

Mr Wood said: “We need to ensure that ambulance funding increases to:
 continue to provide high quality, clinically prioritised and appropriate responses to medical emergencies and accidents
 meet the increasing demand for ambulance services (which is growing year on year), driven by increasing public expectations; changing demographics including a growing and ageing population; increases in chronic health conditions such as diabetes and obesity; and reduced GP cover in rural areas leaving St John as the primary health provider in many areas after 5pm
 ensure well-resourced clinical training and development of our people
 address the single crewing issue and reduce the growing demand on volunteers.”
Questioned about the reliance on volunteers Mr Wood was clear that they had a real place to play in the Ambulance sector. “When countries like the UK (similar in size geographically with a far larger population and economy) use volunteers - we need to both value this contribution to our communities and recognise volunteers will always have a role to play”.
Mr Wood went on to comment about Union perceptions of volunteers. “Volunteers are probably the only real bone of contention with our Unions – with whom we have a healthy and growing relationship. We also need more paid Ambulance Officers, and we have been saying so for a long time.”
For further inquiries, please contact in the first instance:

Ali Tocker, External Communications Manager
Phone 027 211 2159, email ali.tocker@stjohn.org.nz

Background: About St John

 St John provides ambulance services to 95% of the population and more than 90% of the geography of New Zealand
 Over 300,000 111 Emergency Calls to Ambulance Communication Centres managed by St John
 185 St John Ambulance Stations nationally
 280,000 St John emergency ambulance responses per year (767 per day X 365 days)
 Approximately 50,000 emergency ambulance responses single crewed nationwide (18%)
 St John has just over 2200 volunteer Ambulance Officers and just over 800 paid Ambulance Officers.
 St John’s position is that all emergency ambulances should be fully crewed wherever possible. At present, we are unable to fully crew all emergency ambulance responses within available resources.

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