The head of Ambulance Tasmania (AT) has admitted that a quarter of the highest-priority emergency calls are not being assigned a paramedic crew within the target time of three minutes, a parliament committee heard on Monday.
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AT chief executive Jordan Emery told the House of Assembly Select Committee on Transfer of Care Delays that the increase in cases where ambulances were not dispatched within the target time was "absolutely a problem".
"There are certainly cases where we do not have an ambulance available to respond to a P0 or P1 case," he said, referring to the codes for the highest-priority cases.
"That is why I, alongside my health executive colleagues, have done ... everything we can to free up ambulances to respond to emergency cases in the community."
The inquiry was set up last year after coroner inquests found two different patients died after being ramped for hours.
Committee chair Dr Rosalie Woodruff also criticised Mr Emery for a letter he wrote to the committee on January 10, claiming that several aspects of testimony before the committee in December were inaccurate.
"In the letter, you make four different issues with things that have been said to this inquiry under sworn testimony by members of your staff," Dr Woodruff said.
"You have written a letter to correct the public record on testimony under oath. In the course of this letter ... you misquoted them, and you provided no evidence to back up your claims.
In the letter, Mr Emery refuted paramedic and Hobart City Councillor Ryan Posselt's claim that there were high-priority cases not assigned an ambulance happening every hour.
But Dr Woodruff suggested that Mr Emery had misquoted Cr Posselt's statement, who had told the committee in December that there were instances of ambulances not being dispatched on time to emergencies almost every two hours.
She said figures from AT showed there were one and a half calls every hour that weren't getting assigned an ambulance.
"That sounds like a pretty reasonable ballpark estimate of what's happening, which is exactly what that staff member said," Dr Woodruff said.
Mr Emery conceded that Mr Posselt's assessment was accurate.
In the same January 10 letter, Mr Emery also challenged a claim by Mr Posselt that AT paramedics work one to two hours of overtime after every shift.
Dr Woodruff asked how he knew the statement was inaccurate if AT did not have records on overtime hours.
"If you don't have data to refute his claim specifically, how could you make a claim that he was wrong?" Dr Woodruff asked.
She said Mr Posselt had testified that one to two hours of overtime was a regular occurrence on shifts and that his experience was matched by testimony from other paramedics regarding overtime.
"Do you acknowledge that the evidence given to this inquiry about paramedic overtime is actually completely reasonable and fair?"
"I absolutely accept that the workforce is working additional overtime," Mr Emery answered.
Labor health spokesperson Anita Dow questioned another aspect of Mr Emery's letter, in which he refuted a union leader's claim that AT was only able to fill 40 per cent of its staff roster in the Northern region on November 14 last year.
Mr Emery later admitted that he had not personally checked the staff muster records before making the claim in the letter.
Mr Emery agreed and later apologised to Mr Posselt.
He said the January 10 letter would be clarified by a second letter that is being drafted now.
According to the Australian Medical Association, eight per cent of patients taken to hospital by ambulance were ramped in 2015-16.
But this figure had now increased to close to 40 per cent.