13 October 2026
Dr Jordan Gibbs
By the end of October, Marlborough's Urgent Care Centre will have a doctor on site seven days a week.
The multidisciplinary team will be further strengthened by the arrival of a third extended care paramedic in March 2027 and an additional full-time doctor in April 2027.
Marlborough Primary Health Chief Executive Beth Tester is delighted to have secured the three new urgent care specialist clinicians after a lengthy recruitment process that stretched from New Zealand to the United Kingdom, the United States and as far as South America.
A new doctor starts at the centre on 19 October, joining local General Practitioners (GPs) who continue to support the centre when they are not working in their own practices.
Recruiting two additional doctors to the Urgent Care Centre benefits Marlborough's wider primary healthcare system by freeing up GPs to be more available to their enrolled patients, Beth says.
Urgent Care Centre Medical Director Dr Jordan Gibbs says the right place matters for staff as much as for patients.
"We ask our community to choose the right place for their healthcare, and it's just as important that we have a sustainable, long-term workforce where healthcare workers are also in the right place," Jordan says.
"We want to support our GPs to work in their area of specialty. GPs provide long-term care and manage conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Their support is vital in helping people live well, stay well and avoid becoming unwell to the point of needing urgent or emergency care. We are also very appreciative of their support where possible in Urgent Care. "
It's just as important that the Urgent Care Centre is staffed by specialists, says Beth Tester, who has overseen a strategic, gradual restructure of staffing over the past 18 months.
"We've built a multidisciplinary team of urgent care specialists – doctors, nurses and extended care paramedics (ECPs)," Beth says.
"These are highly trained healthcare workers who can dispense medicines under standing orders and order lab tests, swabs and x-rays.
"Extended care paramedics and urgent care nurses provide acute and complex medical care. They can stabilise seriously unwell patients and provide advanced life support, which takes pressure off the Emergency Department at Wairau Hospital."
Jordan previously worked as a doctor in the Emergency Department at Wairau Hospital and knows first-hand how much the two services rely on each other.
"We have huge respect for our colleagues in ED and value our strong relationship. We meet regularly and are actively planning how we can smooth the workflow in both directions. That means lower-acuity patients, such as people with minor sprains, come to us, and patients with more serious needs go to ED."
Jordan explains what happens on the occasional day when a doctor isn't available at the centre and one is needed.
"If a patient needs more care than the team can give that day, they may be offered a same-day online GP appointment through Practice Plus. We also phone patients' own GP practices to get them an earlier appointment than they might otherwise get. Our goal is always to get all our patients to the right place for their care."
The Urgent Care Centre is open from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. Marlborough residents can see a doctor through their own GP practice, through Practice Plus after hours, on weekends and on public holidays (you don't need to be enrolled with a GP to use it), or at the Urgent Care Centre.