• $73.2 million to expand the St John WA urgent care clinic model with three new fully equipped clinics

• $18 million to purchase 60,000 episodes of care at St John Urgent Care Clinics to immediately reduce pressure on hospital emergency departments

• Reducing ambulance ramping with a new option to transport low-priority patients directly to St Johns Urgent Care Clinics

A WA Liberal Government would act immediately to reduce pressure on Western Australia’s public hospital emergency departments by redirecting low-priority cases for free treatment at St Johns Urgent Care Clinics.

Ambulances transporting low-priority patients will be able to take those patients directly to an urgent care clinic and triage clinicians in public hospitals will be able to provide treatment vouchers for urgent care clinics.

The WA Liberal plan allocates $72.3 million to expand the St Johns WA network of urgent care clinics from six to nine and $18 million to purchase 60,000 episodes of care at the clinics.

WA Liberal Leader and Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam said the initiative would instantly reduce ambulance ramping and ED presentations at public hospitals.

“This will put patients in the most appropriate place for their treatment and streamline the path to care for all patients,” she said.

“St Johns urgent care clinics are specifically designed and equipped to provide immediate treatment for injuries and illnesses such as fractures, sprains, and minor infections and other lower-acuity cases that do not require the resources of a full emergency department.

“As well as being a win for hospitals and patients, this initiative is also a win for our ambulance service.

“Faster ambulance turnaround means our highly trained paramedics are not spending hours sitting in hospital driveways waiting to handover their patients.

“But the biggest winners from this policy will be West Australians who need urgent care.”

WA Liberals Churchlands candidate Basil Zempilas said figures from St Johns WA showed that redirecting ambulances with low-acuity patients to urgent care clinics would reduce ambulance presentations at hospital EDs by 20 per cent.

“This will instantly reduce ambulance ramping, instantly reduce ED waiting times and instantly reduce pressures on overworked ED staff,” he said.

“Data release on Friday showed that in 2023-24, only 32 per cent of patients who presented for urgent care in our EDs were seen on time, compared with 65 to 69 per cent in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

“That is not good enough, Western Australians deserve better but in eight years we’ve not seen one single initiative from Labor to turn this around.”

Ms Mettam said the urgent care clinic initiative would complement already-announced health policies, including a $20,000 payment to attract nursing students into our universities, an elective surgery guarantee, and a transitional care initiative to move long-term patients out of hospital beds into more appropriate care.

“These are all commonsense policies that in most instances use existing resources in a more efficient way to better serve the people of Western Australia.”