Creating systemic change

We strive for fair and positive change

An important part of our role is working collaboratively with the organisations we oversight to:

• identify and address system-wide issues and problems
• ensure administrative processes are fair and reasonable.

We work in three key ways to influence positive systemic change:

• providing formal comments, suggestions for improvement and positive feedback or informal comments (for example, to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency's (Ahpra) national complaints team)
• initiating own motion investigations
• responding to public consultation opportunities.

Providing formal comments, suggestions for improvement and positive feedback

Suggestions for improvement

Many of the Ombudsman and Commissioner’s suggestions for improvement have resulted in important outcomes. Examples include Ahpra:

• reviewing or creating a policy or procedure in response to a matter raised (for example, a conflict of interest policy and contact management policy)
• updating its publicly available information to better inform health practitioners, notifiers and others about particular issues
• making its services more accessible to people who do not have access to a telephone or computer
• improving its recordkeeping.

Formal comments

In some matters, the Ombudsman and Commissioner decided to make formal comments rather than specific suggestions for improvement.

The purpose of these comments is to draw the organisation’s attention to an issue that may be an isolated incident or relates to a problem that the organisation is already addressing.

Positive feedback

While our suggestions for improvement and formal comments generally highlight aspects of a matter that could have been handled better, the Ombudsman and Commissioner also provides positive feedback where warranted.