And Melton paramedic Morgyn McCarthy-Harding spoke of a patient dying of heart failure because all available ambulances had been sent to investigate non-life threatening calls elsewhere and none of the crews had been able to reach the patient in time. Ms Hennessy said the community expected ambulances to respond to the most urgent cases but paramedics couldn't do that when they were "distracted" by non-urgent cases. "In too many areas, our ambulances are being treated as a taxi service," she said. Ms Hennessy said 60 per cent of ambulance callouts were getting the most urgent "lights and sirens" responses in Victoria, compared with 40 per cent nationally. She said the state's figures were a sign the emergency level of some cases was being over-estimated. She said many people were calling for ambulances because of gaps in the health system and did not know about after-hours GP services or did not have transportation to get them to medical attention.

Ambulance Victoria acting chief executive Tony Walker said about 100,000 patients a year who did not need emergency care were being treated via ambulances. He said ambulances had been sent out to treat toothaches, small cuts to the finger and elderly people who were worried about their health. The announcement will increase the size of Ambulance Victoria's "referral service" – a team of paramedics and nurses who already receive diverted triple-0 calls when the problem is deemed "non-urgent" by the initial call taker. In 2013, more than 55,000 callers were diverted to the service for a more thorough discussion about their problem before a decision was made to dispatch an ambulance. In 2011-12, the service managed about 48,000 calls. Most callers were referred to GPs, dentists, pharmacists or psychiatric crisis assessment teams. If the caller or patient can be driven to hospital, they may also be advised to transport themselves rather than get an ambulance.

"This is about people getting the right care at the right time when they call triple-0, which is not always going to be an emergency ambulance but a clinically safe and appropriate level of care," he said. He said ambulances would still be dispatched immediately to anyone who had lost consciousness or was experiencing chest pain. But in cases in which the level of emergency was less clear, operators would ask further questions instead of immediately sending out paramedics. Mr Walker said people often did not know how to react in an emergency and that the problems could be better resolved with some advice over the phone, a home GP visit, or a trip to a doctor the following day. Ambulance Victoria will also improve callout technology so operators have a better idea of where ambulance calls are coming from. The measures are part of a $60 million ambulance response time rescue fund, which has been brought forward following the publication of an ambulance performance action plan.

The plan also aims to improve morale in the ambulance system, prevent what Ms Hennessy called the "unacceptably high" rates of suicide and post-traumatic stress among Victorian paramedics and improve work-life balance. With Julia Medew