Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Murray Primary Health Network, which services most of Indi, recently had its after-hours funding cut, apparently because demand is now serviced by Medicare urgent care clinics. The government says four in five Australians live within 20 minutes of a Medicare urgent care clinic, but in Indi, if you live outside Wodonga, it's zero. Minister, can you guarantee that rural communities without a Medicare urgent care clinic will not lose access to after-hours care?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for her question. I think she and I have been corresponding about one particular after-hours service—I think it's called Walwa Bush Nursing Centre, or something like that. I responded to the member, I think last week, about this. It is true that we have adjusted the funding that has traditionally been paid to primary health networks to support after-hours services across the country, and let me give a bit of a sense of why. The member says that's apparently because of the rollout of the urgent care clinic network. That is part of the reason, but it is only part of the reason.

As the member knows, given how familiar she is with the health area, there has been a bit of a transformation about the way in which people access health, particularly after-hours, since COVID. This has been particularly driven by the explosion of telehealth services. Really, what's happened that is more significant, I think, than the urgent care clinic network rollout, particularly for communities like the member's, is the rollout of 1800MEDICARE, which now gives all Australians 24/7 access to high-quality nurse advice and triage services and, after 6 pm, in that period of time that the after-hours service pre telehealth focused on—from 6 pm to 8 am—free-of-charge, high-quality telehealth services from a GP as well.

It's true to say that the urgent care clinic network has also picked up a significant part of what used to be serviced through the after-hours program. It's also true to say that that's not covering every single regional community, as the member knows far better than I do, coming from a city electorate as I do. But I'm convinced that, with the rollout of 1800MEDICARE, which, since January, has responded to 700,000 episodes of service, plus the urgent care clinic network, plus the degree of support that our Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program has given to communities like the member's, which has seen bulk-billing practices triple since just November last year, we are delivering a much stronger Medicare service now.

I think, as I said in my response to the member's letter about that particular after-hours service, the PHN, the primary health network, has provided some funding to that service through the 2026-27 financial year. They have, on my advice, been experiencing quite low service volumes. That, around the country, is seen as a reflection of these new services like 1800MEDICARE and the urgent care clinic network, so the funding that they will receive over the 2026-27 financial year will reflect the quite significant reduction that I understand this service has seen in their after-hours volumes.