Jose's story

Jose contacted our office with concerns about the reasons for the Medical Board of Australia deciding not to take action on his notification about a doctor. Jose believed that the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency's (Ahpra) did not present the Board with correct information and that Ahpra’s investigation into the issues raised in the notification was unreasonably delayed.

Our investigation found it was open to the Board to decide to take no further action. We were also satisfied that Ahpra undertook the necessary risk assessment for the notification within a reasonable timeframe.

However, although our investigation found the Board had considered a verbal submission from the doctor when making its decision, there was no formal record of this submission.

The Ombudsman made formal comments and suggestions to Ahpra about this observation. The Ombudsman stated that it is important that Ahpra documents verbal submissions. Ahpra agreed this is necessary and published its Guide to documenting verbal information.