Rosa's story

Rosa made a complaint to our office about Ahpra and the relevant Board’s handling of a notification she made about a health practitioner in their role as an expert witness.

Rosa raised concerns with Ahpra that the practitioner provided a delayed and inaccurate report about her for the court proceedings. The Board took no further action under s 151(1)(e) of the National Law on the basis that the subject matter of the notification had already been dealt with by another entity.

Our office transferred the complaint to Ahpra (with Rosa’s consent) through our early resolution transfer process. In response, Ahpra advised that the Board had not taken further action because it did not identify an ongoing risk to the public that required its intervention. Ahpra also advised that the Board had determined that Rosa’s concerns about the report would not constitute a departure from acceptable standards to the extent that would warrant regulatory action.

Ahpra’s response, however, did not comprehensively explain why the Board considered that another entity had already dealt with the matter and therefore why it decided to take no further action under s 151(1)(e) of the National Law.

What we found

Through making preliminary inquiries, we found that the court matter involving the report had not been to trial and the court did not explicitly deal with the concerns Rosa raised about the practitioner.

As a result, we found that it would have been preferable for the Board to decide to take no further action under a more appropriate section of the National Law. This is because s 151(1)(e) is only relevant if the Board has determined that another entity has already dealt with the matter.

Complaint outcome

We acknowledged Rosa’s concerns and confusion in relation to the Board’s decision to take no further action on the basis that the subject matter of the notification had already been dealt with by another entity.

We provided feedback to Ahpra and the Board that when assessing notifications where it is not entirely clear that another entity has dealt with the concerns raised in the notification, the Board should not make a decision under s 151(1)(e) of the National Law. Instead, Ahpra and the Board should consider whether there are other more appropriate sections of the National Law to take no further action under. This would also ensure notifiers get accurate reasons for the Board’s decision.