News
Where will Labor’s 50 planned urgent care clinics be located?
A re-elected Labor Government will spend $644 million to roll out extra bulk-billing UCCs across Australia by mid-2026. But the RACGP has concerns.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at a press conference during a visit to the Westmead Medicare urgent care clinic in Sydney. (Image: AAP/Jeremy Ng)
As Australia prepares to head to the polls in the coming months, the Labor Government has made an election promise to fund an extra 50 urgent care clinics (UCCs).
The Government has committed to investing $644 million into the project, which would see new clinics open in each state and territory during the 2025–26 financial year, in the following locations:
- New South Wales (14 clinics): Bathurst, Bega, Burwood, Chatswood, Dee Why, Green Valley and surrounds, Maitland, Marrickville, Nowra, Rouse Hill, Shellharbour, Terrigal, Tweed Valley, Windsor
- Victoria (12 clinics): Bayside, Clifton Hill, Coburg, Diamond Creek and surrounds, Lilydale, Pakenham, Somerville, Stonnington, Sunshine, Torquay, Warrnambool, Warragul
- Queensland (10 clinics): Brisbane, Buderim, Burpengary, Cairns, Caloundra, Capalaba, Carindale, Gladstone, Greenslopes and surrounds, Mackay
- Western Australia (six clinics): Bateman, Ellenbrook, Geraldton, Mirrabooka, Mundaring, Yanchep
- South Australia (three clinics): East Adelaide, Victor Harbor, Whyalla
- Tasmania (three clinics): Burnie, Kingston, Sorell
- Northern Territory (1 clinic): Darwin
- Australian Capital Territory (1 clinic): Woden Valley
There are already
87 UCCs across the country, which will increase to 137 clinics under Labor’s plan.
Federal Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler said he is ‘very confident’ that UCCs are a ‘new model of care for Australia’.
‘You’ll see they’re quite evenly spread, particularly in our major cities, because I wanted to ensure that as many Australians as possible live within a reasonable driving distance of the clinic,’ he said.
‘Once these 50 are up, four in five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of a Medicare urgent care clinic.
‘That means that about two million Australians every year will get totally free care, high-quality urgent care, at a Medicare urgent care clinic instead of having to go to a hospital.’
However, the RACGP has raised concerns about the election promise, questioning whether new UCCs are the solution Australia needs to the challenges it faces in delivering high-quality healthcare.
College President Dr Michael Wright said the UCC model has yet to be properly evaluated to assess whether it provides value for money.
‘We know that the UCCs are a much more expensive model of care, which could be adapted to support existing general practices, and we still haven’t seen an evaluation of them,’ he told
newsGP.
‘We have now seen more than $1 billion committed to setting up these clinics but still have no evaluation to prove if UCCs are providing value for taxpayer dollars or keeping patients out of hospital.
‘We do not support ongoing investment without the evidence that it works.’
Rather, Dr Wright said GPs are best placed to deliver non-life-threatening urgent care and already do so in their practices.
‘I do urgent care in my practice every day – treating ear infections, fixing people up after cuts or burns, treating chest infection,’ he said.
‘So, if they come and see me, their GP, Government pays $42, and people have an out-of-pocket cost. If they go to a UCC, who doesn’t know them, that clinic is getting paid a couple of hundred dollars per visit.’
The college President also questions how the clinics would be staffed, given existing workforce pressures.
‘An increasing number of GPs are working in these facilities, and I want to make sure that they are being supported to provide the care that our patients need,’ he said.
‘These clinics could be an important addition to our health system, but they cannot come at the expense of general practices.
‘We have to make sure that the UCC model isn’t used to shift funding and workforce from our existing general practices, making them less viable, and into the hands of a select few.
‘As I’ve said before, urgent care has a place, but we need to make sure that we are using our limited health budget where it’s needed.’
On Monday, Minister Butler was asked specifically how the Federal Government plans to staff these extra clinics when Australia is already facing a GP shortage.
In response, he said recruitment has so far been successful in clinics that are already operating, and ‘ultimately, they are looking after people who have to be treated somewhere’.
‘This is not discretionary care,’ Minister Butler said.
‘When your 14-year-old breaks their arm falling off the skateboard, if they’re not being cared for in this clinic, they’re going to be cared for by a doctor somewhere else.
‘If you’re not going to a clinic like this, you’re ending up at a hospital, which are already very overcrowded with life-threatening emergencies.’
In response however, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said, ‘there’s no question that Labor’s pork barrelling – have a look at the map as to where these clinics have gone’.
Following the announcement, he said a Coalition Government will deliver urgent care clinics ‘as they were intended’ if elected, saying it would focus on relieving pressure on hospitals and providing access to bulk-billed urgent healthcare.
‘We need more detail on the decision-making process that the Government’s entered into, and we need to make sure that taxpayers’ money is being spent effectively,’ Mr Dutton said.
Minister Butler said a ‘rigorous, independent evaluation’ of the UCCs is currently underway, but said emerging data and feedback on the ground suggests ‘they are working’.
‘I’ve seen national hospital data that shows that those lower category presentations – so semi-urgent, non-urgent, which is what these clinics are aimed at – have flatlined for the first time in living memory across the country. That’s even where the clinics aren’t everywhere,’ he said.
‘But in some of the hospital catchments where states do give us access to the data, we’re seeing if there is an urgent care clinic in the catchment, those presentations are actually reducing by as much as 10–20%.’
Asked about increasing incentives for GP clinics to be able to open after hours, the Health Minister said the Government has received a review of the after-hours system for general practice, which it is currently working through.
‘Presumably, we will act on those recommendations in the future,’ Minister Butler said.
‘But this is quite a different question. These are specialised clinics. The doctors and nurses working with them often have some sort of background in emergency medicine. They’re open seven days a week, they’re fully bulk billed.
‘They have access to pathology and X-ray imaging, which is particularly important because a lot of the cases that come through are breaks or fractures. This is quite a different model.’
The UCC concept was
first announced by the Labor Government in 2022 in a bid to ease the pressure on emergency departments, and provide bulk-billed care for urgent, non-life-threatening conditions.
Since then,
more than 1.2 million Australians have used the service, with one-third being under the age of 15.
The location of the new UCCs has been narrowed down to Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3) geographic areas used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. However,
according to the Department for Health and Aged Care, the exact sites and providers of the clinics will be finalised through a commissioning process conducted by Primary Health Networks, or state and territory governments.
This will typically involve a competitive open tender or expression-of-interest.
Log in below to join the conversation.
bulk billing continuity of care federal election fragmented care Medicare UCCs urgent care clinics
newsGP weekly poll
Health practitioners found guilty of sexual misconduct will soon have the finding permanently recorded on their public register record. Do you support this change?