The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) is the chief provider of out-of-hospital emergency care and ambulance transport in the state of Queensland, Australia. It falls under the control of the Government of Queensland and is one of the largest ambulance services in the world.
The service provides a high level of emergency care and transport services to the entirety of Queensland (typical population 4.3 million people, covering an area of 1.77 million square kilometres. The Queensland Ambulance Service provides emergency response services, pre-hospital patient care, specialised transport services, coordination of aero-medical services and inter-hospital transfers.
Approximately 4500+ FTE staff are employed by QAS, with approximately 87% as front-line operatives, who together deliver their services from 290 response locations across the state. In the 2015/16 financial year, the service handled over 946,000 cases, answered 737,803 triple zero calls and had an overall patient satisfaction rating of 98%.
History
Ambulance services in Queensland first began in 1892. Military medic Seymour Warrian held the first meeting of the City Ambulance Transport Brigade on 12 September of that year. Queensland's first ambulance station operated out of the Brisbane Newspaper Company building; the first officers possessed a stretcher, but no vehicle, and so transported patients on foot. A year after the establishment of the Brisbane centre, another was established in Charters Towers in north Queensland, eventually growing to over 90 community controlled ambulance centres.
The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) as currently known was formed on 1 July 1991 from the amalgamation of 96 individual Queensland ambulance service transport brigades (QATB). While QAS originally operated under the banner of the Department of Emergency Services, in 2009 the Queensland Government restructured the organisational hierarchy and appointed new ministers. It became part of the Department of Community Safety, along with the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, Emergency Management Queensland and Department of Corrective Services. As a result of the Keelty Review of Police and Community Safety in Queensland, the QAS transitioned into the Queensland Department of Health as of 1 October 2013, retaining its separate identity, rank structure and commissioner.
This cache has been placed close to the Narangba ambulance station and there is no need to venture onto their property.