Ministry of Health and ACC Reporting

St John has a contract with the Ministry of Health and the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to provide emergency ambulance services to all parts of New Zealand - excluding the Wairarapa and Wellington districts.

The National Ambulance Sector Office (NASO) is a joint office between the Ministry of Health and ACC. NASO’s function is to progress the New Zealand Ambulance Service Strategy; to provide a single voice for the Crown on strategic and operational matters regarding Emergency Ambulance Services (EAS); and to manage and monitor funding and contracts from both parent agencies related to the delivery of Emergency Ambulance Services.

On this site you’ll also find details on Emergency Ambulance Services performance, quality and safety - including our quarterly updates on ‘Reportable Events’ here. You can find copies of our recent quarterly updates on ‘Reportable Events’ below this article. These are incidents that have been investigated because they have resulted in harm to, or the death of, a patient.

St John aims to have an open and transparent culture of reporting where we actively encourage the reporting of incidents. This is so we can learn, share lessons and so that we can continuously improve the quality and safety of our care and services. Often our patients are in crisis/emergency situations and our interventions or omissions need to be considered in that context.

Each quarter approximately 100,000 111 calls for ambulance are received. Of these, the Ambulance Communication Centres dispatch to around 70,000 emergency incidents. Compared to these volumes, the number of reportable events that occur is very low.

Emergency Ambulance Service Reportable Events January - March 2021