St John focused on continuous improvement

The Office of the Auditor General is today tabling its follow-up report “Delivering Western Australia’s Ambulance Service” in parliament and St John WA welcomes its release.

St John WA CEO Michelle Fyfe said the results of the audit highlighted the many improvements the organisation had implemented since the 2013 recommendations.

“We welcome this follow-up audit and we are pleased to have completed all of the recommendations identified,” Ms Fyfe said.

“It is pleasing to note that the report says we are operating more efficiently and consistently meeting our priority emergency response targets.

“A concerted effort has been made to strengthen our clinical governance as well as improve support for our country volunteers,” Ms Fyfe said.

“These are areas we will continue to work on and develop.

“One of the main points raised is of course the issue of ramping which has been an ongoing challenge for some time.

St John has been working with the Department of Health (DoH) endeavouring to find some solutions to alleviate the effect ramping has on the ambulance service.

“To date there seems to be no quick fix but we have assisted the Health Department to work with the hospitals and implement some short term measures.

“We welcome further collaboration with the DoH and believe there can be benefits in the mutual sharing of data which is one of the recommendations of the report,” Ms Fyfe said.

“Although there are always learnings and areas for continual improvement, overall we are pleased with the findings in this report which show that the community can be confident they are receiving a first class ambulance service,” Ms Fyfe concluded.