Peterborough City County Paramedics gave an update to Selwyn Council on their performance rates over the last year.
At the April 23 regular council meeting, Selwyn Township received a presentation from Paramedics Chief Patricia Bromfield.
Bromfield presented an update on how residents perceived the quality of service provided by the paramedic service both within the City and County of Peterborough.
She explained that they have five locations that operate on a full time basis and one part time location.
These include:
1. Headquarters: 310 Armour Road, Peterborough
2. Clonsilla Base
3. Lakefield Base
4. Norwood Base
5. Apsley Base
6. Buckhorn Base (seasonal from April until October)
Bromfield told council that through the results of a survey they were able to determine the quality of their performance from residents who have experienced the paramedic’s response and care.
Within the County, she explained that their average response time (from the time crew is notified to the time crews arrive on scene) within the county for 2023 was 14 minutes and 35 seconds. This was higher than the Selwyn Specific response time of 12 minutes and 16 seconds.
The longest response time last year was felt in Trent Lakes with a time of 26 minutes and 36 seconds.
She also told council that in 2023, the number of emergency calls classified as Code 4 (Urgent/Life threatening) dispatched saw an increase of 3.35 per cent in 2023 over 2022. However, this is below the five year average of year over year increase which is 3.87 per cent.
Bromfield said that Selwyn Township accounted for 22.06 per cent of total calls within the city and county with a total of 8816 calls.
One issue most of North America is facing right now, Bromfield said, is offload times. This means the time patients are waiting to be offloaded from paramedics into the hospital.
She said that the service experienced 10,340 hours (in excess of 30 minutes) of offload delay in 2023. That is 12.7 per cent of the staffed hours or equivalent to nine full time workers.
She told council, “I would like to highlight though that this is not just a Peterborough problem. This is something that we’re seeing across Canada essentially. We are seeing it in North America and other countries. There are many contributing factors that add to this offload problem that include human resource issues, hospital closures, some EDs (emergency departments) downsized/ closing in areas and in addition to that, people that are unattached to Primary Care Physicians, or other Primary Care Resources. So these are some things that are in the forefront and we are advocating on behalf of our profession as well as the system as a whole to start to look at this a lot closer.”
She stated that overall, residents felt there was good care provided by paramedics with 90 per cent of County and 88 per cent City patients reporting that their care was “very good” or “good” and additional 9 per cent reported care met expectations or “ok”.
She also said that the total confidence was overwhelmingly high at 95 per cent in the City and 91 per cent in the County.
However, response time satisfaction was a bit lower with only 69 per cent of respondents in Peterborough County and City reporting the ambulance response was as quick as expected.
Bromfield explained that response time satisfaction was higher in the City of Peterborough (72 per ent) as compared to the County (66 percent) and lower levels of response time satisfaction was reported by respondents in the Municipalities of Trent Lakes (only 53 percent) and Havelock-Belmont-Methuen (54 per cent)
However the highest levels of response time satisfaction was reported by respondents in the Municipalities of Otonabee South-Monaghan (82 per cent) and North Kawartha (77 per cent)
That being said, eight in 10 patients said that they were satisfied with their most recent experience with Peterborough County/City Paramedic Service (PCCP).
She told council that 85 per cent of City respondents reported “Very High” or “High” level of satisfaction with 82 per cent of County respondents reporting “Very High” or “High” level of satisfaction.
Lower levels of satisfaction were reported by respondents in the Municipalities of North Kawartha (23 per cent) and Trent Lakes (20 per cent).
Bromfield did tell council that there are a number of things happening right now within the paramedic’s services and the ministry of health to try and help improve patient care and response times.
She said that they will be updating their current dispatch system to a medical priority dispatch system as well as they have implemented a new program which sees doctors triage through emergency departments to help patients get seen quicker and improve offload times.
This will impact the way the paramedics operate and improve their service. She said that next year, her report will likely look much different based on these new changes.
