Darren's story

Darren complained to our office about Ahpra and a National Board’s handling of a notification made about him. 

A health complaints entity told Darren it had received a complaint about him and that it had decided to refer the matter to Ahpra to be dealt with as a notification. More than 12 months later, Ahpra contacted Darren to advise it had received a confidential notification about him and the Board had decided to investigate the concerns raised in the notification.

Darren raised several concerns with our office, including that it appeared that Ahpra had not acted on the notification for a significant period. He also raised concerns about Ahpra’s communication with him. Darren told us he was confused about whether the notification was the same one that the health complaints entity had previously told him about. 

Our office made preliminary inquiries with Ahpra to get more information about its handling of the notification. After receiving Ahpra’s response, we decided to investigate Darren’s complaint. 

What we found

We found that when Ahpra first communicated with Darren about the notification, it did not let him know that the notification related to the complaint that the health complaints entity had decided to refer to Ahpra. Although the health complaints entity had disclosed the notifier’s identity to Darren, Ahpra told Darren that the notification was made by a confidential notifier. Ahpra told us it could not locate any records to explain why it had recorded the notification as confidential. 

Our office observed that the Board had decided to investigate the notification shortly after the health complaints entity referred it to Ahpra. However, Ahpra did not contact Darren about the notification for an extended period. Ahpra told us about the steps it took to progress the notification during this time. 

The National Law outlines circumstances in which the Board does not need to give a practitioner written notice of an investigation such as if the Board reasonably believes that doing so may seriously prejudice the investigation. Ahpra could not identify whether any such circumstances applied to the notification about Darren. We considered that Ahpra should have advised Darren of the decision to investigate the notification earlier. 

Complaint outcome

Ahpra advised us that the issues raised in Darren’s complaint led it to considering its processes for confirming and recording whether a notifier wants to be confidential and its information sharing arrangements with the health complaints entity. 

The Ombudsman provided formal comments to Ahpra that it should consider:

• ensuring its notification reference number is cross-referenced with the reference number of the health complaints entity when making initial contact with practitioners and notifiers about matters referred to it by the health complaints entity 

• engaging with the health complaints entity to ensure a consistent approach to handling confidential notifications. 

We considered that these steps would allow practitioners and notifiers to understand that Ahpra is managing the matter and would minimise confusion. We also considered that a consistent approach to handling notifier confidentiality would minimise the likelihood of a scenario where Ahpra seeks to treat a notification as confidential when the health complaints entity has previously released the identity of a notifier to a practitioner.

Ahpra agreed to engage with the health complaints entity to develop a plan to address the issues raised in Darren’s complaint. 

Ahpra also acknowledged that a notice of a new investigation would usually be provided to a practitioner earlier than what occurred in this case. We were able to provide Darren with further information about the steps Ahpra took to progress the investigation between deciding to investigate and contacting him.