Zahra's story

Zahra made a complaint to our office about the timeliness of Ahpra and the Board’s handling of her registration application. Zahra said that an excessive delay in managing her matter had been stressful, had negative consequences for her career, and greatly affected her mental health. Zahra also raised concerns that Ahpra’s communication throughout the registration process had been inadequate.

Our office initially transferred the complaint (with Zahra’s consent) to Ahpra through our early resolution transfer process. In response, Ahpra acknowledged that the time taken to assess the application was significant and outside of expected timeframes. Ahpra offered an apology and explanation for some of the delays, confirmed the application was scheduled for consideration by the Board without further delay and explained that the complainant’s feedback would inform continuous improvement efforts. Zahra was not satisfied with Ahpra’s response and we began an investigation into her concerns.

What we found

Our investigation found the following:

• While the registration application was complex, Ahpra’s handling of the application was excessively delayed and could have been timelier. It took approximately two years for the Board to decide to refuse the application and the following delays were identified:
  • After the application was received, Ahpra took two months to contact Zahra to advise her the application was being assessed.
  • There was a two-and-a-half-month delay before the Board considered the matter once a required report was received.
  • It took more than two months to organise for Zahra to sit an additional assessment required by the Board.
• Ahpra and the Board’s overall communication with Zahra was adequate; however, there were some instances where written communication was not responded to in a timely way.
• While Ahpra had often provided brief updates to Zahra, Ahpra could have provided more information about the application’s status, particularly given the time taken to process it.

Outcome of the complaint

Our office provided feedback to Ahpra about the delay and also reminded Ahpra about the importance of regularly providing meaningful updates to practitioners about the progress of their application.