As the largest ambulance service in the country, the QAS responds to over 1,550 Code 1 emergencies every single day.
It is important to remember that our responses and their codes are dependent on the severity of an incident. Code 1As are our sickest and most critically ill patients and require an immediate response under lights and sirens. These could be cardiac arrest patients, those in devastating car crashes, a severe asthma attack or drowning in a backyard pool.
Those patients with less life-threatening injuries or illness may not receive an immediate response while we prioritise the most critical patients.
Below is a breakdown of our performance this quarter for the current financial year.
Summary of 2023–24 financial year performance
The QAS continued to experience significant growth in demand for services in the 2023–24 financial year.
Despite this growth in demand, our Triple Zero (000) call taking performance continues to exceed targets, achieving 91.27% answered within 10 seconds and our average response time to our most vulnerable patients was 8.5 minutes.
Our officers attended over 2,500 Code 1 and 2 incidents per day and transported over 3,000 patients. During this period, over 1,188,646 Triple Zero (000) calls were received by QAS Operations Centres across the state, with some days experiencing up to 24% increase in call volume.
Triple Zero (000)
We answer over 99,000 Triple Zero (000) calls per month on average.
For many patients experiencing an emergency, Triple Zero (000) is the first entry into the health system. It is important that an emergency call to Triple Zero (000) is answered as quickly as possible to prioritise the situation. This allows us to arrange for the immediate dispatch of an ambulance vehicle in an actual time critical situation and to coordinate the appropriate responses to patients who require a less urgent response.
Based on the priority code of the patient, we will maintain clinical oversight to ensure the safety of those patients waiting in the community. This team, known as the QAS's Clinical Hub, acts as a second set of clinical eyes after patients have been prioritised by an Emergency Medical Dispatcher on the phones. The QAS Clinical Hub will ensure these patients are risk assessed and maintain a level of care either by telephone or telehealth to ensure their condition is monitored. If the condition of the patient changes, the QAS Clinical Hub will enable the escalation of a QAS ambulance response.
In the 2023–24 financial year, we answered 91.27% of Triple Zero (000) calls within 10 seconds exceeding the performance measure of 90%. Despite the increase in the number of Triple Zero (000) calls received each day, the QAS continued to meet this performance target.
The graph below provides the breakdown of our performance by quarter for the 2023–24 financial year.
Graph: Triple Zero (000) calls and performance
Response time
Response time is measured from the time a Triple Zero (000) call is answered in one of our Operations Centres through to the arrival of the first paramedic at the scene.
There are two performance measures—the 50th percentile and the 90th percentile. This represents the time it takes to attend 50% and 90% of incidents, respectively.
Percentile targets are set at a statewide level, with our aim to arrive at 50% of incidents in 8.2 minutes and 90% of incidents in 16.5 minutes.
Whilst acknowledging the challenges in achieving response time targets, we continue to prioritise the most critical (Code 1A) patients across the state.
In the 2023–24 financial year, the response performance for Code 1A was 8.5 minutes (50th percentile) and 17.3 minutes (90th percentile). This is an improvement on the 2022–23 financial year’s performance of 8.6 minutes (50th percentile) and 17.3 minutes (90th percentile).
Figures for the 2023–24 financial year indicate our crews are getting to patients faster than the previous financial year, taking 8.5 minutes to get to our sickest patients, despite the increased workload.
The graph below provides a breakdown of our performance by quarter for the 2023–24 financial year for our most time-critical patients (Code 1A).
Graph: Code 1A incidents and response time performance
