WA Brings FIFO Disability Workers to Remote Communities

People with disabilities in remote Western Australia no longer need to travel 300 kilometers for therapy appointments. The support is coming to them.

A new state and federal program is deploying allied health workers on a fly-in fly-out basis to five regional areas across Western Australia. The rollout follows a pilot project in Katanning that transformed access to disability services for an entire community.

Before 2024, Katanning residents often drove hours to Perth for basic therapy appointments. The pilot changed that by bringing speech therapists, occupational therapists, and disability support workers directly to town. The $7.9 million investment increased the number of people accessing the National Disability Insurance Scheme and established ongoing local support.

Flight2Health, the company leading the expansion, calls it flipping the model. Instead of bringing 300 patients to three clinicians in the city, they bring three clinicians to 300 patients in regional towns.

"We want to make sure that every Australian, no matter where they live, has access to NDIS allied health services," said Flight2Health chief executive Kennedy Lay. Living in a regional area should not determine the quality of care someone receives.

The program will now expand to the South West, Great Southern, Goldfields-Esperance, Gascoyne, and Wheatbelt regions. Each site gets an 18-month establishment phase to build connections with local communities and train casual support workers who already help neighbors informally.

Disability service provider Hireup is partnering with the initiative to create permanent support networks. Rural engagement manager Olivia Nolan emphasized that face-to-face connection makes all the difference in understanding what each community needs.

The Ripple Effect

The Katanning success shows how one program can transform an entire region's approach to disability care. Local government, state officials, and community members worked together to make support accessible. Now four more regions will benefit from those lessons.

The model also creates jobs in regional areas and formalizes care that family members and neighbors were already providing without training or resources. By onboarding local casual workers, the program builds lasting capacity in communities that need it most.

One concern remains about who gets left behind. The Kimberley region, home to one of Australia's highest Indigenous populations, was not included in the expansion. Disability advocate Victor Patrick, a Bunuba man who researched access gaps in the region, called the omission disappointing.

WA Disability Services Minister Hannah Beazley acknowledged more work is needed everywhere, including the Kimberley, where many eligible people do not know they can access NDIS support.

For now, thousands of people across five regions will soon have therapists and support workers visiting their towns regularly. No more choosing between missing appointments and spending a day traveling.

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