Please make sure patients are aware of when your practice will be on break.
Advertise your closure period and after-hours arrangements in your waiting room, on your voicemail and hold messages, and your website. Also confirm that your online booking system reflects your closure period.
You could also consider adding the details to social media and email signatures, updating your Google listing (see instructions here) and National Health Services Directory listing.
Practices registered with Provider Connect Australia (PCA) will be able to automatically update their National Health Services Directory listing.
If you haven’t registered to PCA, you can find out more here.
Ensuring care is available during your break
Make sure your patients are aware of care options during your closure:
- Triple-0 emergency services and hospital emergency departments operate across the holiday period.
- Urgent Care Clinics and the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department are also open.
- Family violence support services are available. See this NWMPHN webpage for details.
Advise pathology and radiology providers of emergency contacts for urgent results.
Before you close, consider reviewing your patients at high risk of hospitalisation to ensure they have required prescriptions, after-hours contact information and any action plans they may need to keep them well. These could include information on heat illness prevention or updating asthma action plans to bring care into line with the updated recommendations.
Minimise disruption to services
- Review your practice’s emergency response and business continuity plans and update processes for your closure period.
- Ensure staff contact details are up to date.
- Minimise the number of vaccines stored over your practice closure period, and plan how you will manage the cold chain in case of a power outage. (For reference, see the updated National Vaccine Storage Guidelines – Strive for 5′, 4th edition.)
Practice incentive programs
- Quality improvement: if your practice submits PIP QI data via the online portal using a JSON file, please ensure you do so prior to 15 January 2026 to avoid disruption to your payments.
- Workforce incentive: remember to submit your quarterly confirmation statement by 30 January 2026.
- Bulk Billing Incentive Program: monitor our Primary Care eBulletins for the release date of the BBPIP forecasting tool, which will allow your practice to check your compliance ahead of the end of quarter on December 31.
Aged care
If you are delivering services to aged care homes:
- ensure they are notified of contact details and after-hours arrangements
- either using the Puffin report in POLAR, or using the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive forecast tool, ensure visit requirements are met for the quarter, which ends on December 31.
NWMPHN closedown
North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN) will close at 5pm, Wednesday, 24 December 2025 and reopen at 9am, Friday, 2 January 2026.
Some of our programs and services will operate at reduced capacity during this period. Please read this important information for primary care providers.
Enjoy your break!
2025 has been a year of significant change and challenge in primary care. However you plan to spend your precious days off, all of us here at NWMPHN wish you a safe and happy festive season, and we look forward to working with you again in the new year.
