Robert's story

Robert contacted our office because he was concerned about how Ahpra had managed a notification he made about a health practitioner who had operated on him. Robert was dissatisfied that the matter had been transferred from a health complaints entity to Ahpra and that the Board had decided not to take further action. He felt that the decision had not been adequately explained and that all the information he provided had not been considered. Robert said that the process had left him feeling ‘like a statistic or piece of data to be collected’.

What we found

We began an investigation into this complaint. Our investigation found the following:

• It was reasonable for Ahpra to manage the notification following consultation with the relevant health complaints entity.
• It was reasonably open to the Board to decide to take no further action when it assessed the notification, and the Board’s decision was adequately explained to Robert. However, material Robert had sought to provide had not been considered by the Board.
• The consent form Ahpra sends to notifiers does not make it clear when health records or other relevant information will be sought by Ahpra. This can lead to confusion for notifiers about what information they should provide to Ahpra themselves for their notification to be appropriately assessed.
• Ahpra could have responded to Robert's concerns about the Board’s decision and a meaningful explanation would likely have avoided the complaint’s escalation to our office.

Complaint outcome

We facilitated providing Robert’s new material to Ahpra. In response, Ahpra advised that the Board had decided to reopen and investigate the notification.

We also provided feedback to Ahpra about the opportunity we found to improve its notification consent form. It is important that notifiers do not believe there is no need to provide their health records to Ahpra on the basis that Ahpra will always access these records themselves, as this is not the case. We also suggested that Ahpra could provide more meaningful complaint responses to notifiers by identifying the main causes of their concern and addressing them.