St John Ambulance will be consulting before deciding how to distribute its new injection of money and manpower.

The government has announced a new investment of $59.2 million to create 430 new emergency medical and paramedic roles. But it will happen progressively over the next four years.

Fifty-nine of those new roles will be based in the Bay of Plenty.

St John chief executive Peter Bradley says one size does not fit all so St John will be talking with local communities and staff to determine what's best for each district.

The cash injection for St John is fantastic according to central east operations manager, Jeremy Gooders. 'St John is committed to a schedule which will mean, by 2021, we won't be sending out single-crewed ambulances. That can only be beneficial for staff and patient safety.”

The pledge for double crewing comes after St John issued a strong message to the public last summer that abuse and assaults on ambulance officers would not be tolerated and prosecutions would be pursued.

Last year frontline ambulance officers were hit, kicked, punched, spat at and verbally abused 3000 times. Up to 10 incidents a month were serious enough for ambulance officers to need hospitalisation.

Ambulance officers operating solo also reported other daily stresses like fatigue, driving long distances to and from incidents, manual handling of injuries, and distractions such as radio communications.

'Double crewing will reduce the stress of staff having to deal with some serious situations on their own and will improve levels of patient care,” says Jeremy.