PM starts final campaign week pledging free hotline for after-hours telehealth (2025)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will kickstart the final week of election campaigning by promising a major expansion of telehealth services through the creation of a new Medicare hotline, ramming home on what Labor sees as its greatest policy strength.

The prime minister will use a rally in western Sydney on Sunday to announce his government would spend $204 million to launch a 24-hour health advice line and after-hours GP telehealth service known as 1800MEDICARE.

Labor claims the policy, which would combine and expand existing public telehealth services, will save 250,000 unnecessary trips to hospital emergency departments a year, easing pressure on state and territory public health systems.

After vowing on Saturday that he would “leave nothing in the tank” during the final days of campaigning, Albanese will tell the rally that the new hotline “will bring new security and peace of mind to people all over Australia”.

“Life isn’t 9 to 5. With 1800 MEDICARE, neither is health care,” he will say.

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“If it’s late at night and your child is running a temperature you’re worried about or has a cough that sounds like it’s getting worse. If you know your elderly parent needs help, even though they’re insisting they’re OK. That trained, expert advice is just at the other end of the phone.”

The hotline would begin operating from the start of next year.

Labor sees health as one of its major electoral advantages over the Coalition and the party has put Medicare at the centre of its campaign in a bid to woo undecided voters.

The prime minister signalled his intention to go on the offensive in the final sprint to polling day by campaigning on Saturday in the marginal Tasmanian seat of Bass held by moderate Liberal MP Bridget Archer.

Speaking to Labor volunteers in Launceston, Albanese said: “I’d ask you to leave absolutely nothing in the tank. I assure you that’s what I’ll be doing.”

Albanese said “we’ll keep going hard all the way up to six o’clock on Saturday because there’s a lot at stake for the country and its future, and I’m so confident”.

Albanese has regularly held up his Medicare card at his campaign events and Labor is proposing to open 50 new Medicare urgent care clinics and spend $7.9 billion to expand bulk billing incentives if it wins re-election.

Under the telehealth policy, registered nurses would be available around-the-clock to provide advice over the phone and refer patients to other services.

If urgent care is required, triage nurses would connect patients to a free telehealth consultation with a doctor via phone or video on weekends or weeknights between 6pm and 8am.

Patients would be able to use this service to receive emergency prescriptions for regular medications or treatment for a short-term illness or injury.

These GP consultations would be recorded in a patient’s My Heath Record.

The current Healthdirect telehealth service does not operate in Queensland or Tasmania and does not always ensure out-of-hours consultation with a doctor if required.

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