New Primary Health Care

After 130 years experience in the delivery of humanitarian and ambulance services in Western Australia, St John Ambulance will now deliver a new primary health care service for the community. A key part of this service will be to offer patients another bulk-billed pathway to urgent care that is safe, timely and high quality.

St John Ambulance believe this service will be necessary to ensure it continues the delivery of humanitarian services to the Western Australian community and in delivering an effective, efficient ambulance service now and well into the future.

By facilitating and providing primary health care, St John Ambulance will be able to incorporate ambulance and primary health care into one service for unscheduled care requirements. This will provide another safe and timely pathway into the health care system for people in need.

How is St John Ambulance doing this?

St John Ambulance has purchased Apollo Health. Apollo Health operates four primary health clinics across the metro area located in Cockburn, Joondalup, Armadale and Cannington. These facilities are state of the art and offer a range of combined health solutions including general practice, dental and physiotherapy.

From July three of these clinics, Cockburn, Joondalup and Armadale, will also operate as Urgent Care Centres, with all accepting walk in unscheduled care patients and St John ambulances servicing Cockburn and Joondalup.

Learn more about Apollo Health: www.apollohealth.biz

What are urgent care centres?

Urgent Care Centres means patients with non-life threatening injuries or illness can be seen by a doctor in a primary setting and receive the most appropriate care without the need to attend an emergency department – receiving safe, timely and high quality care.

The centres will be staffed by a team of highly skilled doctors and nurses that will be able to see and treat patients at the clinic. Urgent Care Centres will have the ability to receive walk in patients at Cockburn, Joondalup and Armadale, and ambulances at Cockburn and Joondalup.

Urgent Care Centres are being operated all around the world and are seen as best practice globally to deliver the most efficient and effective health outcomes for the community. Some of the benefits of the Urgent Care Centres are:

  • Reduction in the stress on emergency departments.
  • Increased availability of ambulances in the community.
  • Deliver a more efficient process for hospital admissions.

Importantly, these centres will bulk bill patients, ensuring they are accessible to all members of the community.

What will happen when I call an ambulance?

St John Ambulances will continue to respond as usual to triple zero (000) calls in the community. However, when attending to the call paramedics will assess a patient’s unscheduled care requirements and determine the most appropriate care pathway in the best interests of the patient. This pathway may be an Urgent Care Centre or pubic hospital emergency department.

Patients will be made fully aware of the recommended approach to treatment and can discuss these options with paramedics at the time of the incident.

Locations of medical clinics:

Cockburn Open 7 days. Cockburn Gateway Shopping Centre

816 Beeliar Drive
Ph: (08) 6174 6000
Joondalup  Open 7 days.
Joondalup Gate
21 Joondalup Drive
Ph: (08) 9400 7000
Armadale  Open 7 days.
Armadale Central Shopping Centre
Shop 62/63
Ph: (08) 9399 0909
Cannington  Open Monday – Saturday.
1480 Albany Higway
Beckenham
Ph: (08) 9350 8000