A purpose-built, GP-led health hub establishing a new standard for how a modern medical practice should operate — and how clinicians should be supported.
Ascend Health Hub is a premium, GP-led medical practice being established at 166–168 West Fyans Street, Newtown — a purpose-built facility designed around how clinicians actually work, not around the convenience of a landlord.
We are here to provide something Geelong's established residential corridor genuinely lacks: a modern, well-resourced, whole-person health hub where GPs are the anchor, allied health and specialists add depth, and every patient leaves feeling genuinely cared for.
Ascend is founded by Sam and Ian Johnson — the same team behind Child's Play Early Learning Centres, a premium Victorian care group built from scratch over the past decade. Having spent more than ten years building and running compliance-driven, people-first care businesses across multiple sites, we understand what it takes to create an environment where practitioners do their best work.
We are not a corporate aggregator. We are not passive investors looking for a return. We are operators — people who understand that the quality of the environment determines the quality of the care.
We are transparent about finances, performance and decisions. Clinicians who join us will always know where they stand.
We build and operate to the highest standard — in our physical facility, our systems, our support staff, and our clinical culture.
Clinical autonomy is not negotiable. Your billing model, your schedule, your clinical decisions — these are yours. We are here to support, not to interfere.
We are technology-forward and systems-led. AI-assisted documentation, cloud-based practice management, seamless Medicare integration — we reduce friction so you can focus on patients.
Newtown and its surrounds are our community. We are committed to accessible, high-quality primary care for the long term — not a short-term investment.
We believe that when clinicians are genuinely supported — with the right environment, systems, team and culture — the quality of patient care takes care of itself. That is the philosophy at the heart of everything we are building.
We want to build something Geelong currently lacks: a practice that is genuinely clinician-first — where GPs and allied health professionals feel respected, well-resourced and part of something worth committing to.
Our vision is not simply to open another GP clinic. It is to establish a benchmark — for what a modern, premium, GP-led health hub looks like in regional Victoria, and to build the foundations for a broader Ascend Health group that can replicate that standard across multiple sites.
We believe the best clinicians choose where they work. Our job is to make Ascend the obvious answer.
Newtown is one of Geelong's most established and sought-after inner suburbs. Located on elevated ground just south of the CBD, it is defined by heritage streetscapes, premium owner-occupied housing, a strong professional demographic and one of the highest concentrations of private schooling in regional Victoria.
The 2021 Census recorded 10,445 residents, a median household income of $2,092 per week — above the Geelong average — and a median age of 40. Nearly one in five residents is under 14. This is exactly the demographic that generates sustained, high-value GP demand: established families with children, professionals in their peak earning years, and a growing cohort entering the chronic disease management phase of their lives.
Beyond Newtown itself, the 5km primary catchment encompasses Geelong West, Manifold Heights, South Geelong, Highton (northern), Belmont (northern) and the inner CBD fringe — a combined population well in excess of 60,000 across predominantly owner-occupier, higher-income suburbs.
Importantly, this catchment is growing. Greater Geelong is projected to expand by 152,000 people by 2036 at 2.5% per annum. In the March 2025 quarter, Geelong captured 9.3% of Australia's total net internal migration to regional areas — surpassing the Sunshine Coast. The City of Greater Geelong has formally designated Newtown, Geelong West and Manifold Heights as Increased Housing Diversity Areas, actively facilitating infill development to increase population density across the direct catchment. The patient base will grow, not contract, over the life of the practice.
Newtown's concentration of leading schools is one of the primary reasons families choose to live here and stay. It creates a stable, long-term resident base of professional households — exactly the patient demographic a premium GP practice is built for.
Sam and Ian Johnson are active and committed members of The Geelong College community — contributing through sustained volunteer involvement, community partnership and a genuine long-term commitment to the school's mission. These are not arm's-length connections. They are sustained relationships built over years, across a school family network that represents a significant proportion of the professional households in this catchment. Ascend enters this community with existing trust — not as a new practice looking to build it from scratch.
Ascend is built around general practice — not despite it. General practitioners are the anchor of everything we do, and every service we bring into the hub is designed to support and extend that relationship. We are not a wellness centre that happens to have GPs. We are a GP practice that happens to offer excellent allied health, pathology and specialist access.
Private and mixed billing GP consulting across 9 purpose-built consulting rooms. Flexible billing models. Sessions designed around clinicians, not admin convenience.
Chronic disease management, care plans, health assessments and nurse-led programs. Building long-term relationships with patients through proactive, coordinated care.
On-site pathology collection through a nationally recognised partner. Convenient for patients, additional revenue support for the practice, seamless referral workflow.
Physiotherapy, psychology, dietetics, podiatry and more — co-located under one roof, enabling genuine multidisciplinary care and warm referral pathways.
Visiting specialist sessions across a broad range of disciplines. Reduced patient travel time, faster access to specialist care, and an expanded referral network for GPs.
Dedicated treatment room and purpose-built procedure room for skin procedures, minor surgery, biopsies, suturing and nurse-led treatment services.
We've spoken to enough GPs to know what drives them away from practices. We've built this one to address those things directly — before they become problems.
Designed from a blank site with clinical workflow at the centre — not retrofitted into an existing space. 9 large consulting rooms, a treatment room, procedure room, sterilisation bay, allied health rooms, pathology, dedicated staff areas and a north-facing internal light well. Every decision was made with the clinician's day in mind.
Strong reception, nursing and administrative staffing from day one. Four front-of-house positions. Dedicated nursing team. Practice management software that works. An admin infrastructure designed so clinicians spend their time on patients, not paperwork.
Cloud-based practice management system. AI-assisted clinical documentation. Seamless Medicare and DVA claiming. Telehealth integration. Dual monitors and ergonomic workstations in every consulting room. We invest in the tools that give clinicians time back.
We are not a faceless corporate owner. Sam and Ian Johnson are the owners, the operators and the people you'll actually deal with. We operate with full financial transparency. Income splits are clear, fair and documented. What we agree is what happens.
Your billing model is your choice. Your schedule is your own. We understand that flexibility is one of the most important things clinicians look for in a practice, and we have designed Ascend's operating model to support it — not to override it.
We understand that moving to a new practice carries risk. We are prepared to discuss income guarantee arrangements for founding GPs during the establishment phase — because we want clinicians who choose Ascend to feel secure in doing so.
We've learned — in building and running premium childcare centres across Victoria — that the quality of the environment you create determines the quality of the people who choose to work in it, and ultimately the quality of care those people deliver.
A great practice culture doesn't happen by accident. It's built through consistent, intentional choices: about who you hire in support roles, what systems you put in place, how you handle difficult conversations, and whether you actually follow through on what you've promised.
At Ascend, we invest in our clinicians in the ways that matter:
166–168 West Fyans Street, Newtown. Purpose-built. Designed by MKM Building Group. Colorbond roofline, brick and Cemintel exterior. North-facing internal light well with landscaping.
Sam is the Co-Founder and Director of Ascend Health Hub, and the CEO of Child's Play Early Learning Centres — a premium, multi-site Victorian childcare group she co-founded and has led for over a decade.
Sam began her career as a qualified early childhood educator in the UK, specialising in working with children with additional needs. After migrating to Australia in 2008, she identified a gap in the market for genuinely high-quality, family-centred care in fast-growing communities — and built Child's Play to fill it.
What Sam has built is directly relevant to Ascend: she has recruited and retained high-quality practitioners in a competitive labour market, built multi-site teams with genuine culture, achieved peak quality ratings (Exceeding the National Quality Standard) across multiple services, and rebuilt an entire centre from a catastrophic fire within 10 months while retaining both families and staff.
She understands — from hard experience — that the quality of a care organisation is almost entirely determined by its people, and that the way you recruit, support and retain those people is what separates a good practice from an exceptional one.
Sam brings to Ascend an operator's understanding of what clinicians need to do their best work: genuine support, consistent leadership, a well-run environment, and an owner who keeps their word.
Ian is the Co-Founder and Director of Ascend Health Hub, and CFO of Child's Play Early Learning Centres. He is a CPA and CIMA-qualified accountant and finance director with over 20 years of commercial and operational leadership across the UK and Australia.
Before joining Sam in building Child's Play, Ian's career spanned finance and operational director roles across nuclear waste management, stockfeed and manufacturing — industries where compliance, financial rigour and operational discipline are non-negotiable. He understands complex business systems, not as an abstraction, but as a daily operational reality.
At Child's Play, Ian has led all back-of-house operations: payroll, IT, HR, financial management, technology systems and compliance across a growing multi-site group. He has grown individual sites from near-zero occupancy to capacity, installed enterprise-grade operational systems, and managed the financial and regulatory complexity of a highly compliance-driven care sector.
His role at Ascend is to ensure the business infrastructure — the systems, the finances, the technology, the physical facility — is handled at the highest standard, so that clinicians can focus entirely on what they trained to do.
Ian is commercially direct, financially transparent and operationally hands-on. The clinicians who join Ascend will deal with him personally — not a management layer, not a franchise head office.
Sam and Ian Johnson are the owners, the capital providers and the accountable operators of Ascend Health Hub. We make no claim to deep clinical experience — that is precisely why we have invested significant time and effort in identifying and securing the right healthcare leadership partner before a single brick is laid.
We are pleased to confirm that an experienced and well-regarded healthcare professional — with a strong reputation in the Geelong regional health ecosystem and a background spanning senior executive leadership, GP practice operations, clinical governance, technology implementation and workforce development — has already committed to the Ascend project in a senior operational capacity.
This person brings the clinical industry credibility, operational knowledge and professional networks that complement our own commercial, financial and operational experience. Together, we believe we have assembled a genuinely capable founding team for what Ascend is setting out to build.
For professional reasons — specifically existing contractual obligations — we are not in a position to disclose this person's name or current employer in this document. Their identity, background and role within Ascend will be shared with any prospective clinician either in person at an initial meeting, or following the execution of a mutual non-disclosure agreement. We appreciate your understanding and invite you to make contact to take the conversation further.
166–168 West Fyans Street, Newtown — a purpose-built 599.84m² single-storey health hub on a 1,560.75m² site with direct access off West Fyans Street, 19 on-site car parks, two street-facing crossovers and dedicated bike parking. Targeted opening: Late 2027.
Designed by MKM Building Group (Ballarat), the facility brings together clinical functionality and a premium, human-centred built environment — Austral Tasman Blend brick and Cemintel Woodlands cladding, Corodeck Surfmist roofline, a landscaped north-facing internal light well, and painted timber portico entries. Clinical finishes throughout. No compromises.