GP Recruitment

Parents, disability, and mobility: the patients falling through the gap in Australian primary care

27% of Australians who need GP care delay or skip it. 7 in 10 cite reasons other than cost. These patients are not avoiding care because they cannot afford it — they are avoiding care because accessing it is genuinely hard. Here is who they are and why a daytime home visit reaches them. Sources at the end.

The access gap is not primarily a cost gap

The ABS Patient Experiences Survey 2024-25 provides a clear picture of why Australians delay GP care. Of those who delayed or did not see a GP when needed, 3 in 10 cited cost — and 7 in 10 cited other reasons including long waiting times and difficulty accessing the service. The access problem in Australian primary care is not primarily financial. It is logistical, physical, and structural. These are problems a clinic cannot solve but a home visit can.

Parents with unwell young children

A parent with a sick infant or toddler faces a specific and underappreciated access challenge. Getting a sick child dressed, into a car, and into a waiting room is not trivial — particularly when the child is febrile, vomiting, or in pain. Waiting rooms present infection exposure risks to both the sick child and other patients. The logistics of getting a young child to a clinic on a weekday morning without disrupting work, childcare arrangements, or other children's school routines creates real barriers to accessing timely care.

A GP who comes to the home removes every one of these barriers. The child is seen in their own environment, the parent does not need to arrange transport or manage a sick child in a waiting room, and the GP can assess the child in a setting where they are most comfortable and most accurately observed. Perth Home GP explicitly lists parents of sick young children as a core daytime home visit patient cohort — people who cannot leave home during the day in the same way that adults without caring responsibilities can.

People with disability and mobility limitations

For patients with physical disability, severe mobility limitations, or conditions that make leaving the house a logistically complex undertaking, clinic attendance is not just inconvenient — it can require hours of preparation, assistance from carers, and physical effort that is clinically counterproductive. The AIHW's chronic conditions analysis highlights that Australia's ageing population presents increasing challenges through the growing demand for services to support people living with chronic conditions — many of whom face physical access barriers as part of their condition.

Perth Home GP describes its service as designed for “patients who are unable to access a bricks and mortar GP clinic” — with particular focus on elderly patients and individuals with disabilities. This is not a niche. It is a defined, documented, and growing cohort with genuine primary care needs that the clinic model cannot serve during business hours.

Mental health and anxiety as access barriers

For patients with significant anxiety, agoraphobia, or mental health conditions that make public spaces and waiting rooms genuinely distressing, a clinic visit is not just logistically difficult — it can be clinically contraindicated. A GP who visits the patient at home provides care in an environment that removes the psychological barriers that prevent this group from accessing the clinic-based care they need. This cohort is frequently underserved precisely because the services they need are structured in ways that make them difficult to access.

What this means for a GP considering C.A.L.L.S

The patients who delay or skip GP care due to access barriers — parents, people with disability, people with mobility limitations, people with mental health access barriers — are not patients who do not want care. They are patients who cannot access care in the format currently available. A daytime home visit GP does not compete for these patients with existing clinic-based GPs. They are the first point of accessible primary care for a cohort that the clinic model has structurally failed to reach.

According to Abby Health's guide to after-hours care, home visits are particularly useful for elderly patients, parents with sick young children, and people who cannot travel — identifying the same cohort from a patient-facing perspective. The demand is real, documented, and waiting for a national service that can reach it during business hours.