Ella's story

Ella made a complaint to Ahpra about how it had handled her concerns regarding a practitioner. Ella contacted our office because she remained dissatisfied after receiving Ahpra’s response. Ella told us that she was concerned Ahpra had not adequately addressed why her matter had been referred to 2 health complaints entities. She believed Ahpra should have handled her concerns because they related to a registered health practitioner.

Ella also raised concerns with us about Ahpra’s communication approach and the time taken to consider her concerns about the practitioner.

What we found

Our office made preliminary inquiries with Ahpra to receive more information to assess Ella’s complaint. Ahpra’s response indicated that it had assessed Ella’s concerns as being about a registered health practitioner and also about a health service. Ahpra had consulted with a relevant health complaints entity, which agreed to manage Ella’s concerns.

We found that Ahpra had understood and considered Ella’s concerns about the practitioner but also that it was open for Ahpra to consider whether another complaints entity was better suited to manage her concerns. We found that Ahpra had taken reasonable steps to consult with the relevant health complaints entity and that it was mutually agreed that the health complaints entity would handle her concerns.

However, our office uncovered that after this initial agreement was made, the health complaints entity then referred Ella’s concerns to another health complaints entity for management. We found that the second health complaints entity then sought to consult with Ahpra about the concerns Ella had raised. Through consultation, it was agreed that the second health complaints entity would manage Ella’s concerns.

In considering Ahpra’s complaint response, we found that it contained some inaccuracies and a misunderstanding about whether it had received a copy of Ella’s concerns.

Complaint outcome

Our office recognised Ella’s ongoing concerns about the time it took to consider her matter because it was referred between 3 organisations. Ella’s experience reveals some of the challenges people can face when seeking to raise a health-related concern.

We found that Ahpra had provided an appropriate explanation and apology to Ella for the incorrect information provided in its response to her complaint and the misunderstanding about Ella’s matter. However, we provided feedback to Ahpra that its complaint response could have better addressed Ella’s concerns about the first consultation that occurred between Ahpra and the relevant health complaints entity. This information could have been useful for Ella to better understand how her matter was handled, and to our office in assessing her complaint.

Since Ella’s matter was then being dealt with by the second health complaints entity, we provided Ella with information about how to
make a complaint about that entity if needed.