Gertrude's story

Gertrude made a notification to Ahpra about the care provided by a practitioner to her late family member. The relevant Board considered Gertrude’s concerns and decided to take regulatory action against the practitioner.

Gertrude was concerned about the time taken to finalise the notification. She also said the notification outcome letter she received from Ahpra left her family feeling empty because it did not provide details of the action that was taken against the practitioner and it was confusing to read because it referred to sections
of legislation.

What we found

Our office transferred Gertrude’s complaint to Ahpra through our early resolution transfer process. In its response, Ahpra apologised for the time taken to finalise Gertrude’s matter and acknowledged this was outside of its guidelines for managing notifications. Ahpra also provided an explanation to Gertrude about the sections of the National Law referred to in the notification outcome letter she received.

Ahpra’s complaint response explained that due to privacy considerations, it could not provide details of the regulatory action that was taken in relation to the notification. However, our office noted that information about the regulatory action taken against the practitioner could be found on the public register of practitioners.

Complaint outcome

Our office sought further clarification from Ahpra about its complaint response, and Ahpra confirmed it had provided incorrect advice to Gertrude. It acknowledged that information published on the public register is not confidential and can be freely shared.

We gave Gertrude more information about the regulatory action that was taken in response to her notification. Ahpra also apologised to Gertrude for the error in its communication with her.

Our office provided feedback to Ahpra about the wording in its complaint response. Ahpra agreed to review the wording in its notification outcome letters where action is taken against a practitioner to make information more transparent for notifiers.