News

Several weeks ago the Victorian Ambulance Union advised Ambulance Victoria that we will have no choice but to lodge a dispute in the courts if the pre-rostering of surge responders before paramedics does not end. The VAU now can announce that it has been successful in securing a package of arrangements to wind back the utilisation of surge responders and to transition back to paramedic crewing on all paramedic shifts.

The VAU can announce the following:

• Effective immediately, AV will cease pre-rostering surge responders into paramedic shifts;
• AV may continue to roster surge responders into offload teams and discharge vehicle shifts;
• AV will maintain a pool of surge responders and may only place surge responders into a paramedic shift only after paramedic options are exhausted via the following means;
  • Future known vacancies (>24 hours from commencement of shift):
    • the shift will be gazetted;
    • available paramedic reserve / spare staff are allocated as per standard practice; and
    • overtime list is exhausted.
  • Day of operation vacancies (<24 hours from commencement of shift):
    • available paramedic reserve / spare staff are allocated as per standard practice;
    • overtime availability list has been exhausted; and
    • all identified available AV operational staff have been sent an SMS to advise of the vacancy.
  • If this occurs, the qualification and experience level of the operational staff member must be appropriate; and
  • Crews will not be ‘split’ to facilitate placement of surge responders;
  • If an AV paramedic becomes available to work a shift already allocated to a surge responder:

(a)  the operational staff member will be rostered onto the shift; and

(b)  the surge responder will be removed from that shift and remunerated appropriately.

The purpose of this package is to break the cycle of surge responders filling paramedic shifts which in-turn leads to higher numbers of unfilled shifts. To achieve this, members who wish to work overtime shifts are strongly encouraged to use the AV roster kiosk to register your availability as early as you can. This allows our Rosters members to pre-plan and to roster paramedics into vacant paramedic shifts ahead of time.

To assist with this, the VAU have secured the following financial incentives to assist AV in filling shifts:

• The unsociable shift allowance scheduled to apply from 1 February 2023 ($162 per shift) will be brought forward to apply from 25 July 2022 (the current allowance is $132 per shift).
• The above unsociable shift payment which applies to Friday, Saturday and Sunday, will also apply to Monday.
• the payment of full shift overtime and recall for any shift commencing after midnight on Thursday through to 23:59 on Monday will be paid at the rate of double the rolled-in-rate applicable to those shifts (currently paid at double base rate).

These financial arrangements will be kept in place until 16 October 2022.

Despite all intentions there may be a small number of occurrences where paramedic options have been exhausted and a surge responder is placed into a shift. If this happens to you, report the issue on the VAU website so that we can follow it up with AV. Please treat the surge responders with respect and ensure they are looked after. We are all incredibly grateful for the role that surge responders have played during the pandemic and look forward to seeing them start their paramedic careers soon.

The VAU have asked AV to communicate the specific reporting and escalation processes to deal with local issues. But in the first instance, members should print up this bulletin and refer local management to it if you encounter issues.

To be clear, the VAU is not encouraging members to work excessive overtime and encourages all members to be aware of your own fatigue and AV Fatigue Management Procedure. This arrangement is not the panacea to the current strain on the AV workforce. But it is an important first step towards returning to paramedic crewing on all paramedic shifts.

In Solidarity