Working together on timely responses

The next meeting will be in August.

In the meantime the service has said efforts are being made across the state to improve all response times, which based on the most recent response data for Tocumwal ranges from just over 18 minutes (lights and sirens) to almost 27 minutes.

The Tocumwal and district community has been lobbying for a dedicated ambulance station for a number of years, with community members and Berrigan Shire Council strongly advocating that the growing community should not have to rely on services in other communities.

Under the Community First Responders (CFR) model, there are five Fire + Rescue NSW personnel at Tocumwal who are provided with NSW Ambulance equipment to respond to emergency incidents.

The Tocumwal CFR unit is dispatched when requested, and provide emergency assistance until paramedics arrive.

The closest NSW Ambulance station to Tocumwal is in Finley, 21km away.

“New South Wales Ambulance operates a highly mobile workforce, with vehicles and crews moving throughout their shifts to provide geographical coverage of ambulance resources across the Berrigan Shire,” a NSW Ambulance spokesperson said.

“The recent New South Wales Auditor General’s ‘Performance Audit: Ambulance services in regional New South Wales’, recognised that New South Wales Ambulance’s service and workforce planning is evidence based, effective and efficient in delivering ambulance services for regional communities.

“As part of our evidence-based service planning, New South Wales Ambulance regularly uses best practice modelling software to assess and analyse all locations across New South Wales to identify and prioritise the most suitable locations for emergency care. This analysis includes mapping and modelling Triple Zero (000) calls to potential station locations.

“Tocumwal was not identified as a priority location, relative to other areas in service planning completed by New South Wales Ambulance in 2023.

“More than 20 other locations throughout regional New South Wales have been identified with a higher priority for new services than Tocumwal.”

The Tocumwal CFR model was established in 2010 in partnership with Fire + Rescue NSW.

NSW Ambulance provides and trains CFR units to assist with timely responses to immediately life-threatening conditions including urgent CPR and defibrillation.

“Having a CFR partner on scene provides early clinical intervention and care to patients by partners who are trained, credentialed and tasked by New South Wales Ambulance until an ambulance nearby can respond,” the spokesperson said.

“The New South Wales Auditor General’s Performance Audit also found that since October 2022, New South Wales Ambulance response time performance (including in the Murrumbidgee zone) has improved, despite increasing demand.

“According to New South Wales Ambulance response data for Tocumwal from 2022/2023, there were nine Priority 1A responses (immediately life-threatening highest emergency cases). Due to this small sample size an accurate median response time cannot be provided.

“The median response time for emergency Priority 1 cases (response with lights and sirens) was 18.18 minutes. The median response time for Priority 2 cases (response with no lights and sirens) was 26.45 minutes.”