‘Meet people where they are’: NSW’s health pledge as cost of living pressures grow

The NSW government has pledged to “meet people where they are” for healthcare ahead of the winter hospital surge, as both state and federal governments eye “critical” cost of living relief.

Pressures on Australian families were high on the agenda on Tuesday evening when Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down the Albanese government’s fifth budget.

The 2026-27 program included an $250 Working Australians Tax Offset from mid-2028, as well as a major rethink of capital gains tax and negative gearing.

It comes as NSW seeks to expand access to free healthcare and services outside of the overloaded hospital system.

The state’s health minister, Ryan Park, said traditionally healthcare was handled in such a way as to “make people essentially come into the system as we’ve structured it”.

“What I’ve tried to do over the last few years is reform that and try and meet people where they are at,” Mr Park said.

Mr Park said the state government was trying to meet people’s healthcare needs “from a convenience perspective”, including free urgent and virtual care services which seek to divert patients away from time-consuming and costly GP visits.

Virtual care services, which were recently expanded across the state, are bulk billed and estimated to save an average person seeing a GP six times per year up to $264.

For a family of four, it could be as high as $1056.

Mr Park said practical cost of living relief was “critical”.

“I hear it every day as a member of parliament, but also I hear it when I go and watch my son at footy or footy training, parents and families are bloody struggling at the moment,” he said.

“They’re really struggling and healthcare can be an expensive cost, and it’s a cost that is hard to defer.

“What I’ve tried to do in reforming our system over the last few years is really get away from everyone having to go into a hospital or into a GP and say, can we provide an alternative way, an alternative pathway to do that?”

It comes as health services in NSW brace for a surge in hospital presentations over the winter months, spurred primarily by cases of influenza.

Mr Park said about 1200 beds were taken up already by aged care or NDIS patients waiting to be moved into Commonwealth-funded care – an issue known as bed block.

The hospital system was also seeing a “big increase” in category one, two, and three patients – the “most sick and severely ill” patients, Mr Park said.

“We’re seeing big increases in those highly complex patients,” he said.

“We’ve got to try and reduce our category four or fives or our less serious patients.”

The NSW government is also focusing on families, which it says could save as much as $1200 per year by accessing free state services,

From April, parents in NSW have had access to free needle-free “flu mist” nasal spray vaccination for children aged between two and four-years-old.

Children and parents and carers of children up to five-years-old also have access to free family health services, while all children have access to free dental services through the NSW Health Public Dental Services.

Free mental health care is also provided at 24 Medicare Mental Health Centres and Kids Hubs across the state, including in Blacktown, Wagga Wagga, and Broken Hill.

Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson said the state government had invested $58m in the mental health care network “in every corner of the state”.

“Thousands of families across NSW are already making the most of these centres, with Lismore, Liverpool and Penrith some of the busiest centres in 2025,” she said.

“The Minns Labor Government is delivering on its commitment to universal, free healthcare and that rightly includes access to critical mental health support.”

Since coming to power, the NSW government has also sought to expand access to the contraceptive pill and to ADHD medication through GPs.

Premier Chris Minns said basic healthcare “shouldn’t be difficult or prohibitively expensive to access”.

“We recognise families are under real pressure right now, with the rising cost of mortgages, rents, food and fuel, and we don’t want basic healthcare to take a back seat,” he said.

“These free or low-cost initiatives for families through the public health system, provide some relief right now which will keep money in the pockets of families.”