An article from the Sydney Morning Herald (Laura Banks, ‘Paramedics will shut down triple 0’: Boycott to go ahead as pay negotiations stall’(December 1, 2023)) about the HSU’s registration ban industrial action (see Potential consequences of proposed NSW Ambulance industrial action (September 16, 2023)) says ‘Without registration, paramedics are legally unable to attend triple zero calls.’

That is not the law. NSW Ambulance responds untrained volunteers (NSW Ambulance and GoodSAM App (November 26, 2023)) and non-paramedic clinical volunteers (https://www.ambulance.nsw.gov.au/get-involved/volunteer) to triple zero calls.  There is no law that says who can and who cannot attend triple zero calls.

What the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law says, at s 113, is that a person who is not registered cannot use the title ‘paramedic’ and cannot be held out to be a paramedic. That may cause problems for NSW Ambulance if non-registered people respond in ambulances marked ‘paramedic’ or in circumstances where the people receiving care expect that the person on the door is a paramedic.  That may indeed be solved by HSU members wearing their red ‘NSW Ambulance Driver’ t-shirts and being paired with a paramedic who is not taking part in the action.

There is no doubt that this action poses a considerable threat – both operationally and from a public relations perspective – to NSW Ambulance and the government and is no doubt bringing pressure on the government to come to the table to meet the paramedics’ demands. There may be legal reasons why employees who have not renewed their registration cannot do things that NSW Ambulance employment standards assume will be done by paramedics (in particular supply and administer scheduled drugs), but it is not the case that without registration they are ‘legally unable to attend triple zero calls.’

This blog is made possible with generous financial support from the Australasian College of Paramedicine, the Australian Paramedics Association (NSW), Natural Hazards Research Australia, NSW Rural Fire Service Association and the NSW SES Volunteers Association. I am responsible for the content in this post including any errors or omissions. Any opinions expressed are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or understanding of the donors.