Government Ignoring Ramping Inquiry Recommendations

Through evidence from a wide range of experts, stakeholders, health staff, and patients, the ramping inquiry examined the causes and the effects of ambulance ramping. Its final report, tabled in November 2024, delivered 110 findings – and crucially 41 recommendations.

When this report was released, the then-Health Minister noted it with only a single sentence in passing. The Minister promised the report would be considered, and said some recommendations were already being actioned. But we’ve heard nothing since.

We have no doubt some recommendations from the ramping inquiry would have been addressed. After all, the inquiry did identify a range of common-sense steps that were wildly and inexplicably overdue. But worryingly, critical major actions don’t seem to have gone anywhere.

Recommendations that seem to have been ignored include increased hospital staffing; bringing forward plans to expand hospital capacity; growing crucial community care programs; actions to improve patient flow; and better data sharing and transparency. All these measures – and many others – are things the State Government could and should be doing.

The Liberals should have spent the past year getting on with implementing all the recommendations from the ramping inquiry, but it seems they are ignoring many of them. At the very least, the Minister for Health should be honest with Tasmanians about exactly which recommendations the government has decided to refuse.

Unfortunately, it seems the Rockliff Government is more interested in playing the blame game with their federal counterparts than they are in delivering evidence-based solutions to the health crisis.