The National government has finally allocated the money promised by the former Labour government to try and improve ambulance services in New Zealand.

The following message is from Mark Woodard, Group Manager - National Ambulance Sector Office:

• 100 new paramedics.  NASO will be working with providers to assure that these new staff will be located to result in the greatest reductions in single crewing and on-call responses.
• Support for rural volunteers to upskill to the Basic Life Support (BLS) level.  We will be working with existing providers to organise the details of this programme.
• Support for a registration process for ALS and ILS paramedics to achieve recognition under the Health Practitioner Competency Assurance Act (HPCA).
• Additional support for the air ambulance sector in recognition of declining community support in this recession.

In addition, the Ministers also announced the release of the New Zealand Ambulance Service Strategy.  This revised strategy reflects the input we received from 57 submissions and the 419 people that participated in sector engagement meetings.  For example, one of the things that you may note in the final Strategy is the inclusion of a phased work programme, which identifies which initiatives will be actioned first.  The final strategy and a summary of both the written submissions and the sector engagement process is posted on our website (http://www.naso.govt.nz).

We have commented to media outlets in response to this announcement.

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