Bill's story

We received a complaint from a practitioner, Bill, who had been experiencing difficulties while undertaking a training program to get an endorsement. Bill had
contacted Ahpra for advice about how he could progress in the training program but said he had not received timely responses.

Bill said he had then applied for an area of practice endorsement in an attempt to receive a response to his concerns. His application was refused because he had not met the requirements for endorsement.

Our office sought Bill’s consent to transfer his complaint to Ahpra for a response. Ahpra’s response focused on why his application for endorsement had been refused. But Bill explained to our office that he was more concerned about Ahpra’s insufficient responses to his questions before applying for endorsement.

We made preliminary inquiries into Bill’s matter to better understand how Ahpra had responded to Bill’s queries. After reviewing Ahpra’s response, we commenced an investigation into the matter.

What we found

Our investigation found that Ahpra did not communicate with Bill in a timely manner with respect to his concerns about progressing on his training program, or about his application for endorsement. The delays in communication appeared to have been due to the unforeseen absence of Ahpra staff members who had been responsible for dealing with Bill’s matter.

We also found that Ahpra had not adequately explained to Bill what steps it could take to resolve his concerns about the training program.

Additionally, we found that some of Ahpra’s documents could have been clearer about the training program’s requirements.

Complaint outcome

We provided feedback to Ahpra about responding to questions from practitioners in a timely manner and to ensure that in instances where an assigned staff member is unavailable to attend to their matters, arrangements are made for another staff member to manage the matters. We reminded Ahpra of the importance of ensuring it has robust processes in place for reallocating matters in the event of unexpected staff leave.

We also suggested that Ahpra update some of its documents to clarify the requirements for obtaining endorsement after completing a training program.