Report card shows "alarming" levels of ramping

The Australian Medical Association’s (AMA) Ambulance Ramping Report Card 2025 reveals “alarming” levels of ramping across Australia, with ramping in some states still double what it was five years ago — the report being the first to include five-year longitudinal comparisons across each state and territory.

“Emergency departments have difficulty getting patients admitted into hospital for many reasons, including under-resourcing, and a lack of beds due to exit block,” AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen said. “Our amazing hospital and ambulance staff are doing the best they can to get people the care they need, but they desperately need more resourcing, more space, more beds and a system that works.”

Exit block occurs when patients are ready to be discharged but can’t be because they have nowhere to go. It is a problem that McMullen said particularly affects patients waiting for aged care or disability accommodation or support. “It means less beds for inpatient services, which results in increased waiting times for ambulance services, emergency department services, and essential elective surgeries,” McMullen said. “Our hospitals have been struggling since before the COVID-19 pandemic.”

McMullen said additional federal funding for public hospitals was welcome but called on whoever wins government to expedite a new National Health Reform Agreement. “The federal government’s promised investment for public hospitals through the new agreement, originally estimated at $13 billion, is little more than a nice idea if states and territories fail to reach an agreement with the federal government. And the reality is that the cost of healthcare has gone up and most of the new funding will be eaten up before it is able to fund extra services,” McMullen said.

“The need for a new fit-for-purpose agreement has never been greater — for doctors and their patients,” McMullen added, also pointing to a need for greater transparency in data, with each state and territory reporting data differently, thus making it impossible to accurately compare jurisdictions. “Despite these differences, performance has clearly fallen across the board over the past five years,” McMullen said. ”We are advocating for nationally consistent reporting of ambulance ramping to be included in the National Minimum Data Set that all jurisdictions must provide to the federal government.”

The Ambulance Ramping Report Card 2025 is available here, via the AMA website.

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