Tasmania is falling short of its own targets for getting ambulance patients into hospital care, a new report has found.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) says 85.7% of patients were transferred from ambulances to hospital staff within 60 minutes in 2024–25.
That was below the average target of 95.4% for the year.
The figures come from the AMA’s latest report card on ambulance ramping, launched in Canberra today.
The report says there were more than 100,000 ambulance call-outs in Tasmania last financial year, up 5.3% on the year before.
That works out to 178.8 incidents for every 1,000 people, the AMA says, up from 170.1.
Tasmania has changed its ramping rules in recent years.
The state introduced a transfer-of-care policy in April 2024, setting an official protocol for patients to be moved from ambulances to hospital staff within 60 minutes.
In December last year, the state cut that target time to 45 minutes.
AMA president Danielle McMullen says ramping is now an everyday problem.
“Ambulance ramping is not an occasional pressure point – it’s a daily reality and a symptom of the logjam in our public hospitals,” McMullen said.
She says the pressure is hurting frontline staff too.
“Treating patients in corridors, managing prolonged handovers and juggling unsafe workloads undermines clinical decision-making and places doctors in morally distressing situations,” she said.
McMullen says the fix is more hospital beds, better patient flow and more health workers.
The Tasmanian government has previously said it is making progress on ramping.
Speaking in February as the policy faced a union challenge, Health Minister Bridget Archer pointed to figures showing ambulances spent 17,500 fewer hours ramped in 2024–25 than the year before – a drop of nearly 64%.
The government’s 2026–27 budget set aside $776.6 million for ambulance services.
