2. Complaints Commissioner functions

There are 5 sections to our Complaints Handling Policy:

The Complaints Commissioner is appointed by the Minister and has an important role in aged care. They give older people a voice so they can raise concerns about their care, without fear of consequences or retaliation. This helps us:

understand what is not working for older people
work with providers and workers to improve aged care services
enables parties to work together to restore their trust in one another.

In dealing with complaints received by the Complaints Commissioner, we aim to deliver a high-quality complaints handling service that:

Respects	supports the will, independence, rights under the Statement of Rights and preferences of older people educates older people, their carers and their supporters about their rights and whistleblower protections makes it easy for people to make complaints listens to understand what is not working well for older people
Empowers	engages, supports and empowers older people, their carers, their supporters and advocates, to make complaints freely, confidently and without retaliation empowers open disclosure by providers makes it easy to make complaints and ensures our process is accessible
Protects	protects and improves the safety, health, wellbeing and quality of life of older people receiving funded aged care uphold rights of older people manages complaints in line with our privacy and whistleblower protection responsibilities
Restores	works with parties to restore the relationship and build trust, including through open disclosure raises issues with providers, their workers and responsible persons so they can work with older people to: - understand and fix the issue - prevent the issue from happening again at all services delivered by the provider
Improves	collects information and reports on complaints uses information from complaints to assess the risk to older people and to act when that risk is too high educates providers and supports a culture of rights and good complaints management supports providers to have effective complaints management systems supports improved experiences for older people through successful resolution of complaints.