13-government-services-2013-chapter9

Equity — access
Equity of access indicators measure access to services by groups in the community
who may have special needs — this chapter provides data on services provided in
remote locations, but not other special needs groups.
Response locations
‘Response locations’ is an indicator of governments’ objective of providing
accessible emergency ambulance services to communities (box 9.15).
Box 9.15 Response locations
‘Response locations’ is defined as the number of paid (or salaried), mixed and
volunteer response locations per 100 000 people. Locations are primary ambulance
response locations where paid, volunteer or a mix of paid and volunteer ambulance
operatives are responding in an ambulance vehicle and providing pre-hospital care.
Higher or increasing numbers of paid, mixed and/or volunteer response locations, after
adjusting for population, suggests better ambulance service response capacity.
This indicator complements the ‘availability of paramedics’ indicator, as some
jurisdictions’ ambulance workforce comprises a large proportion of volunteers,
particularly in rural and remote locations. This indicator also helps explain variation in
expenditure for ambulance services across jurisdictions. For example, in some
jurisdictions, smaller rural areas are serviced by paid ambulance personnel whereas in
others, there may be a mix of paid and volunteer personnel or wholly volunteer
personnel. Service delivery strategies have a significant impact on cost and help
explain differentials in expenditure per person between jurisdictions.
Data reported for these indicators are comparable.
Data quality information for this indicator is at www.pc.gov.au/gsp/reports/rogs/2013.
In 2011-12, the number of salaried, mixed and volunteer response locations
per 100 000 people varied across jurisdictions (table 9A.36 and figure 9.21).
9.46 REPORT ON
GOVERNMENT
SERVICES 2013