AMBULANCE response times on the Mornington Peninsula have improved by more than one minute for urgent callouts in the last year.
Ambulance Victoria released its response time data for 1 January to 31 March 2026 last week. The average “Code 1” response time on the Mornington Peninsula was 14 minutes and 48 seconds, a healthy improvement on the 15 minute and 56 second average during the same period of 2025. The average during the final quarter of 2025 was 15:04.
During the first quarter of 2026, 66.8 percent of ambulances responded to Code 1 callouts on the Mornington Peninsula within 15 minutes. In the first quarter of 2025, that figure stood at 62 percent.
In the Frankston municipality, Code 1 response time averaged 13:45, with 73.7 percent of callouts responding within 15 minutes. While those figures are marginally worse than the January-March period in 2025, they are an improvement on the final quarter of last year.
In the Kingston municipality, average response time for Code 1 callouts between 1 January and 31 March of this year was 15:09. The average response time was higher than the preceding quarter, but more ambulances responded within 15 minutes.
Ambulance Victoria targets a 15-minute response time to Code 1 callouts for 85 percent of incidents statewide. Victorian paramedics responded to 66.4 per cent of Code 1 cases within 15 minutes between January and March this year.
Ambulance Victoria executive director of regional operations, Michael Georgiou, said that the statewide average response time to the Code 1 cases was 12 seconds faster in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the final quarter of 2025. “The quicker response times are thanks to the incredible efforts of our hard-working crews who are clearing hospital more than five minutes faster than a year ago,” he said. “When we leave hospital faster, we can get back out into the community faster – and that means better outcomes for patients facing critical life-threatening emergencies.
“AV’s Triage Services team – staffed by nurses and paramedics – also plays a vital role by connecting people with the right care and freeing up ambulances for life-threatening emergencies. From January to March, 49,508 people who did not need an emergency ambulance were instead connected to more appropriate care by our expert Triage Services team. And our Medium Acuity Transport Service (MATS) crews are also freeing up more ambulances to respond to the most critically ill patients. These crews have attended more than 127,000 cases since hitting the road in September 2021.
“At AV, we continue to lead the way in patient satisfaction and emergency care, including the best cardiac arrest survival rates in Australia and second best anywhere in the world.”
First published in the Mornington News – 26 May 2026
