MUNDARING and Ellenbrook were both announced as planned sites for urgent care clinics if the federal Labor government is re-elected, but general practitioners say the clinics require further assessment.

Labor has announced plans to open a Medicare urgent care clinic (UCC) in Mundaring and Ellenbrook as part of a $644 million initiative to establish 50 new clinics across the country.

The initiative aims to reduce pressure on hospitals by providing urgent but non-life-threatening medical care in a more accessible setting.

If plans go ahead, the Mundaring and Ellenbrook clinics are expected to open before the middle of 2026.

Labor candidate for Bullwinkel Trish Cook said the Mundaring UCC would be fully bulk billed and offer urgent care without making patients wait hours in a busy hospital emergency department.

“The Medicare UCC will be open seven days, for extended hours, and take pressure off the St John of God Midland public hospital,” she said.

According to Labor, St John of God (SJOG) Midland recorded 26,882 non-urgent and semi-urgent cases in 2023-24.

Hospitals aim to receive all patients within 30 minutes of a patient’s arrival at the emergency department and if it takes longer than that, it is referred to as ramping.

Data from St John’s public information for ramping reported 577.4 ramped hours at SJOG Midland for February 2025 and 75.5 ramped hours recorded for the current month as of March 4.

In context, since 2016 SJOG Midland’s ramping peaked with 916.3 hours recorded in March 2022 and its lowest recorded point was 15.1 hours in April 2017.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Michael Wright told newsGP this week the UCC model needed to be properly evaluated to assess whether it provided value for money.

He said general practitioners may be paid $42 from the government and the rest out of pocket for urgent care, though the hundreds that could be paid to UCCs per visit raised questions about value for taxpayer dollars.

Dr Wright said UCC models shouldn’t shift funding and workforce away from existing practices, making them less viable.

In the same story, federal Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler said a rigorous, independent evaluation of UCCs was underway with recommendations to incentivise GP clinics opening after hours under consideration.

The Medicare UCC were a key promise at the last election, with an initial plan to open 50 clinics.

The government has delivered 87 UCCs across Australia with more than 1.2 million Australians recorded as having used the existing UCC facilities.