Brisbane North PHN Medicare Urgent Care Clinics Commissioning

Background

Strengthening Medicare and ensuring all Australians have access to affordable, high-quality primary care, when and where they need it, is a key priority for the Australian Government. A key objective of this commitment is to expand access to bulk billing services, both through the Medicare UCC Program and across the broader network of private care providers. The Australian Government has committed up to $644.3 million to establish a further 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics (Medicare UCCs) over three years (2025-26 to 2027-28) throughout Australia, bringing the total number of Medicare UCCs to 137. The Medicare UCC Program aims to ease the pressure on hospitals and give Australian families more options to see a healthcare professional when they have an urgent, but not life threatening, need for care. This measure delivers on the Government’s 2025-26 Budget commitment to strengthen Medicare and improve health care access and affordability for all Australians.

As defined in the Medicare UCC Program Operational Guidance, Medicare UCCs will:

• Be co-located with, or partnered alongside, existing general practice clinics, community health centres or Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS). Please note that preference will be given to locations where these providers offer full bulk billing.
• Operate extended business hours and accept walk-in patients
• Be bulk billed resulting in no out-of-pocket costs to the patient
• Be flexible and diverse, responding to the needs of the local community
• Be high quality, safe and effective, and
• Treat conditions that do not require a hospital admission (i.e., broken bones, wounds, and minor burns).

Medicare UCCs support people to connect to pathways of care within the broader health system, including ensuring referrals and appropriate handover back to a patient’s regular General Practitioner (GP) or care provider to ensure that the patient receives continuity of care. All referral pathways into and out of the Medicare UCC should be driven by local need and co-designed with relevant stakeholders to ensure connectivity to existing community health services, GPs, non-government sector, state funded services, hospital and ambulatory services, and other support services.

The intended outcomes of the Medicare UCCs are to:

• Improve access to urgent care in a non-hospital setting particularly for vulnerable groups. This includes the aim of changing consumer behaviour about options for appropriate care for urgent conditions that are not immediately life-threatening.
• Reduce the pressure on Emergency Department (ED) presentations in partner hospitals by providing patients with short-term, episodic care for urgent conditions that are not immediately life-threatening.
• Support integration with existing local health services and complement general practice.

Current funding opportunity

Brisbane North PHN is seeking registrations of interest from eligible providers to operate new Medicare UCCs in the following locations:

1. Narangba – Burpengary SA3 or bordering suburbs, and
2. Brisbane Inner SA3 (north of the Brisbane River) or bordering suburbs.

Following a competitive tender and commissioning process, the two new Medicare UCCs are expected to be operational by 31 December 2025.

Eligibility

As defined in the Medicare UCC Program Operational Guidance, Medicare UCCs must be:

• Based in an existing general practice, community health centre or Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS).
• Located in either Narangba – Burpengary SA3 or bordering suburbs or Brisbane Inner SA3 (north of the Brisbane River) or bordering suburbs.
• Partnered with a general practice that is accredited to a recognised and relevant standard such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioner Standards for General Practice or working towards accreditation to be achieved by 31 December 2025. Medicare UCCs may also consider accreditation to other relevant standards such as the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards, and the National Safety and Quality Primary and Community Healthcare Standards, where appropriate.

Please note that your application will be considered relative to proximity to existing urgent care-related services.

How to apply

To proceed to the next stage of this commissioning process, Brisbane North PHN requires submission of a Registration of Interest (ROI) confirming eligibility and intention to apply for funding. Click on the “Submit ROI” icon below to lodge your submission online.

Next Steps

From this ROI process, providers meeting eligibility will be invited to submit a response to a Request for Tender (RFT) through the Brisbane North PHN e-tendering portal Tenderlink. Refer to the Tenderlink fact sheet for further information.

The timeframe to submit the RFT application through Tenderlink will be four weeks, which will open in early September 2025.

Note

Questions can be posted on this page using the “Ask a question” button below and will be monitored by our team Monday to Friday 8.30 am to 4.30 pm, excluding public holidays. If your question is commercially sensitive, please email it to us at ucc@brisbanenorthphn.org.au. We may de-identify some questions and share it if it provides clarification broadly for all interested parties.