Ambulance Victoria (AV) aims to improve the health of the community by providing high quality pre-hospital care and medical transport. AV provides emergency medical response to more than 6.7 million people in an area of more than 227,000 square kilometres.
Our Services
Air Ambulance
Ambulance Victoria’s fleet of five helicopters and four planes provide a vital link between rural communities and metropolitan health services.
The main users are patients outside the metropolitan area, which ensures rural communities have rapid access to our highest level of care and transport to major specialist care in the Melbourne metropolitan region, particularly for severe trauma patients as part of the state trauma system.
Patient Transport
Whilst Ambulance Victoria’s primary role is as an emergency pre-hospital medical response provider, Patient Transport is integral to the ongoing, effective delivery of services.
Adult Retrieval Victoria
We coordinate and provide inter-hospital transfer of critically ill adult patients across the state through Adult Retrieval Victoria (ARV).
ARV uses doctors, paramedics and MICA paramedics to move critically ill adult patients between hospitals using road ambulances, planes and helicopters. ARV also provides telephone advice on the clinical care of critically ill patients, coordinates access to critical care, coronary and specialist care beds in the hospital system and provides adult and paediatric trauma advice and referral. The service was officially created in November 2007.
The service has a 24-hour phone line (1300 36 86 61), through which clinicians can request advice and/or a retrieval. For routine ARV referrals, clinicians can refer to ARV electronically via REACH – https://reach.vic.gov.au
Emergency Management
The Emergency Management Unit coordinates AV’s response to major incidents across the state, such as heatwaves, bushfires and floods. One of the unit’s main roles is to isolate large and complex incidents so that AV’s “normal” business can continue unaffected so that we can respond to the normal level of emergency calls that continue in addition to the major incident.
The unit has managed a series of diverse incidents, including leading the evacuation of two large metropolitan hospitals (due to flooding and subsequent power failures) and a deployment of paramedics to a riot among prisoners at the Ravenhall Remand Centre. It was also involved in preparations for a health response following the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and the deployment of paramedics to Vanuatu as part of the humanitarian effort following a devastating cyclone that hit the region in March 2015.
The unit represented AV in peak emergency management bodies, reviewed and published a new version of the AV Emergency Response Plan (in line with the State Health Emergency Response Plan) and successfully integrated with the DHHS State Emergency Management Centre on a permanent basis.
The unit deployed paramedics to anti-terrorism exercises held in conjunction with other agencies to test the emergency response to mock terrorist incidents, and coordinated paramedic attendance at more than 300 major public events including the Spring Racing Carnival, F1 GP and MotoGP, New Year’s Eve, Melbourne Ironman, Around the Bay in a Day and the AFL finals series.
Public Events
Ambulance Victoria strongly encourages all event organisers to consider possible Occupational Health & Safety issues with regards to their event, the general safety and wellbeing of the event’s participants and the safety of both the local and broader communities. The Ambulance Victoria Events team will conduct a risk assessment of your event with you to establish the most appropriate level of response for your event and if applicable develop a Health Emergency Management Plan.
Family Safe: Support for AV family members
AV Family Safe Space is designed to help educate and inform you, our Ambulance Victoria (AV) family members, about how best to support your loved ones, while also ensuring that you get the support you need.
Victorian Stroke Telemedicine (VST)
The Victorian Stroke Telemedicine (VST) service enables clinicians to collaborate across organisational boundaries to deliver the best care possible to patients with stroke, irrespective of their location.
If you require an ambulance at an event download a copy of the public event booking form, complete the form and email to events@ambulance.vic.gov.au