New awareness campaign promotes responsible use of Triple Zero

A new awareness campaign encouraging the appropriate use of Triple Zero for ambulance services was launched today at the Ambulance and Fire Communication Centre (AFcom) at Spring Hill.

Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said the campaign was a direct result of the Ambulance Audit recommendations handed down by himself and the Premier last December.

“As well as identifying $12 million in savings from non-essential areas, the Ambulance Audit recommended the introduction of a range of demand management initiatives,” Mr Roberts said.

“A central part of that is a new awareness campaign addressing concerns that highly-trained, well-resourced paramedics were being sent to cases that didn’t warrant their level of expertise – taking away from their vital role of attending life-threatening medical emergencies.

“Too many people are requesting ambulances for what turn out to be minor conditions such as ear-aches, tooth-aches and stubbed toes.

“This diverts ambulances away from real emergencies.”

Mr Roberts said as demand rises, it is important the public is encouraged to only call Triple Zero for serious, life threatening or critical conditions.

“In 2007-08, the QAS provided around 880,000 responses to incidents. On average, that’s one every 35 seconds. That includes 57,000 more urgent, life-threatening calls than occurred in 2006-07.

“In the same way that the community is now aware that hosing driveways is a wasteful use of water, the Triple Zero campaign highlights that calling an ambulance for a minor condition is overkill.”

QAS Commissioner David Melville said anyone facing an emergency should still call Triple Zero.

“This is not about discouraging people to utilise triple zero, it’s about creating awareness and encouraging people to know when its appropriate to call Triple Zero for an ambulance,” Mr Melville said.

“For minor injuries or ailments the public can utilise the 13HEALTH service, their local GP or pharmacist. “

Mr Roberts said the Queensland Ambulance Service is also introducing other demand management initiatives.

“These include the introduction of more clinical oversight of calls, and the planned implementation of a secondary triage system in our communication centres.

“Already in Brisbane, we have seen the ratio of 1.4 ambulance responses to every incident in July 2007 drop to just 1.14 in July 2008.

“The Ambulance Audit has seen a renewed focus on the frontline.

“This financial year we are recruiting an additional 250 ambulance officers, 100 of which were funded by savings from the Audit. That’s on top of the 255 additional officers recruited last year.

The old adage of ‘using a steamroller to crack a nut’ is one of three examples being used by the QAS on posters and a as part of a radio and TV campaign.

The campaign begins today and will run through to mid-November.

Media Contact: Brendan Connell 0437 837 976