Newman praises cut to ambulance ramping at hospitals
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman says 'ambulance ramping' at the state's major hospitals has reduced by 95 per cent within three months.
He says figures show ramping totalled 527 hours in August, but fell to just 22 hours in November.
Ramping is what happens when hospital emergency departments are too busy to unload patients from ambulances, forcing both paramedics and patients to wait outside, sometimes for several hours at a time.
Mr Newman says people on the ground are doing some great work to fix the problem.
"We've got local hospital health boards now who are determined to say no to ramping," he said.
"The emergency services staff in our major hospitals are being empowered and given the opportunity to actually make changes to the way they deal with people coming in from ambulances."