The average response times for Code 1 critical incidents have show a trend towards improvement over the nine months to July.

Ambulance responses in and around Ararat have been at their second fastest level in 15 months.

An ambulance reached the scene within 15 minutes on 62.5 per cent of critical incidents between April 1 and June 30 this year.

Ambulances responded to 144 critical incidents in that time, the busiest period since the middle of last year.

However, Ararat’s performance was still short of the state-wide performance target of 85 per cent of critical incidents responded to within 15 minutes.

“Response times are an important measure of the service we provide, but are only one of a number of measure used to gauge the effective delivery of an ambulance service,” Ambulance Victoria’s performance report stated.

“Response times are influenced by many factors including traffic, availability of ambulances and demand for our services.” 

Performance for non-critical ‘Code 2’ incidents has also improved following a three-month period at the end of last year when the average response time blew out to more than 37 minutes.

The last two quarters have seen average response times of less than 33 minutes.

Stawell’s ambulance response times for the same time period have also improved.

Premier Daniel Andrews this week announced plans for much-needed upgrade at St Arnaud ambulance station