One in five calls to Victoria's emergency phone service are for non-urgent or trivial matters, Ambulance Victoria says, with more than 100,000 callers being diverted to other services.

Ambulance Victoria chief executive officer Tony Walker said it was a frustrating situation and a significant concern.

He cited examples of people calling triple-0 after being scratched by a cat or having blue hands from the colour from their jeans.

Mr Walker said a public information campaign was planned for later this year, but in the interim phone calls for non-urgent or trivial matters were being triaged by health professionals such as nurses or paramedics.

"We're moving 100,000 patients away from triple-0 response to alternative service provision," Mr Walker said.

"We're now spending much more time with them on the phone so we can get the right service to them and importantly not tie up our emergency ambulance resources."

Ambulance response times 'improving'

The latest figures on ambulance response times showed ambulances reached about 75 per cent of code one call-outs within 15 minutes, well short of the 85 per cent target.

But Deputy Premier James Merlino said the 1 per cent improvement on last year's figures showed response times were getting better.

"We're seeing more ambulances get to more emergencies quicker despite an increasing population and an increasing case load," Mr Merlino said.

"[We] absolutely agree with the challenge ahead of us but this takes time and what we're seeing is sustained improvement which I'm really proud of."

The Opposition said the Government had not done enough to improve ambulance response times, and wait times had actually gone up in the past three months.

"There is no meaningful improvement in these numbers from the millions of dollars that have been invested," Opposition health spokeswoman Mary Wooldrige said.

"But most importantly the rhetoric and the promises that Daniel Andrews made to Victorians that he was going to improve response times for ambulances. The data today is evidence of that."

Mr Merlino said there had also been "significant improvement" in hospital performance data with what he called the best figures for the elective surgery waiting list since June 2010.

"The elective surgery waiting list now stands at 37,000," he said.

"It was as high as 50,000 under former Liberal/National government."