Medicare Urgent Care Clinics exist for the gap between your GP and the emergency department: conditions that need attention today but are not life-threatening. Per the program’s standing description, no appointment is needed, patients walk in, and all services are bulk billed, so there is nothing to pay. If it is life-threatening, none of this applies: call 000 or go straight to the emergency department.
The three clinics
| Clinic | Where | Run by | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Haven Medicare UCC | Shop 127, Lake Haven Shopping Centre, Lake Haven | Coastal Lakes Medical Practice | 8am-10pm, 7 days |
| Peninsula Medicare UCC | 297 West St, Umina Beach | Providence Medical | Mon-Fri 8.30am-8.30pm, weekends 8.30am-6.30pm |
| Erina Medicare UCC | Shop Med1 “The Hive”, Erina Fair, 620-658 Terrigal Drive | Erina Fair Medical Centre | 8am-10pm Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm weekends |
Locations and operators per the Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network; hours per each operator’s own clinic page. Hours can shift on public holidays, so it is worth a quick check with the operator before travelling.
What do they actually treat? The program’s own examples are a cut, a high temperature, a viral infection or a sprained ankle; the Erina clinic’s list adds minor fractures, sports injuries, urinary tract infections, respiratory illness, gastro, minor burns, eye and ear infections and rashes.
The newest clinic, at Erina Fair
The Erina clinic is the Coast’s third and newest. Erina Fair Medical Centre won the tender in December 2025, run by the Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network, and began seeing patients from mid-December 2025, per the network. One footnote from the record: the third Coast clinic was originally flagged for Terrigal, with the health department opening expressions of interest in mid-2025; the tender landed it at Erina Fair, on Terrigal Drive.
The point of all three is to pull non-emergencies out of hospital queues. Around 44 per cent of presentations to Gosford Hospital’s emergency department in 2023-24 were for semi-urgent or non-urgent conditions, per the December announcement, and the Lake Haven and Peninsula clinics had taken more than 50,000 visits between them since opening in 2023.
The free kids’ mental health hub at Tuggerah
Separate from the urgent care clinics, and easy to miss, is the Medicare Mental Health Kids Hub at Block A, 2 Reliance Drive, Tuggerah, open since December 2025. It offers free mental health and wellbeing support for children aged 0-12 and their families, carers and kin, aimed at mild to moderate developmental, emotional, social or behavioural challenges. No diagnosis and no referral is needed: families can simply make contact. The hub is staffed by mental health clinicians, allied health professionals, care navigators and peer workers, and is open 8.30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, on (02) 4394 1799.
It is the first of four such hubs in NSW, funded by a $35.8 million joint investment, $17.9 million each from the Australian and NSW governments, per the opening announcement.