Charlotte's story

Charlotte made a complaint to our office about Ahpra’s handling of concerns she had sought to raise about a health practitioner. Charlotte said she tried to make a notification about the health practitioner, but Ahpra decided that her concerns did not raise appropriate grounds for a notification.

Charlotte told us that, following this decision, she provided more information about her concerns to Ahpra. However, Ahpra decided the extra information lacked sufficient particulars to be considered a notification.

Charlotte had already complained to Ahpra but was dissatisfied with Ahpra’s response. In particular, she was concerned that Ahpra maintained its view that her concerns would not be progressed as a notification. Charlotte was also troubled by the sections of the National Law Ahpra referred to in its decisions.

Our office made preliminary inquiries into Charlotte’s complaint. We got information and documents about Ahpra’s handling of Charlotte’s concerns, including the decisions it made.

What we found

We assessed that Ahpra considered all information Charlotte provided about her concerns. We found that it was reasonably open to Ahpra to decide that Charlotte’s concerns did not raise appropriate grounds, or otherwise include ‘sufficient particulars’, to be considered a notification. We also found that Ahpra referred to the appropriate sections of the National Law in its correspondence to Charlotte.

Complaint outcome

We finalised Charlotte’s complaint based on our finding that it was reasonable for Ahpra to have decided her concerns did not meet the grounds for a notification. However, Charlotte’s complaint highlighted that Ahpra may be applying an inconsistent approach when it receives similar concerns raised by other notifiers. This is because Ahpra and the relevant Board may at different times:

• determine concerns do not raise grounds for a notification, or
• accept concerns as a notification and decide to take no further action because it is ‘lacking in substance’ or ‘misconceived’.

We advised Ahpra of our concern about this potential inconsistency when we finalised Charlotte’s complaint. We also confirmed we would continue to monitor this issue, including as part of our ongoing monitoring of Ahpra’s decisions not to progress concerns as a notification.