Good complaints practice for providers

Good complaints practice

Good complaint handling leads to better care for older people.

Good complaints handling can:

fix problems quickly and early, and stop them from happening again
improve quality of care
help providers put the needs of older people at the centre of providing aged care
increase satisfaction and improve relationships between the person receiving care, their family and supporters, the provider and staff
give providers information and insights to help improve the care you provide
help providers make decisions about new services you might offer
improve a provider’s reputation
strengthen trust in a provider’s service
make sure providers respect older people’s rights.

Provider obligations

The Aged Care Act 2024 (the Act), Aged Care Rules 2025 (the Rules) and Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards (Strengthened Quality Standards) require providers to have a good system for resolving complaints.

Providers also have to:

act in line with the Statement of Rights and Aged Care Code of Conduct
work towards restorative outcomes
practise open disclosure.

Statement of Rights

The Act includes a Statement of Rights. It details the rights that older people have when receiving aged care. Providers need to act in line with the Statement of Rights to make sure that older people and their needs are at the centre of aged care.

The Statement of Rights includes older people’s right to:

empowerment and freedom of choice
quality and safe services
person-centred communication
raise concerns without fear of punishment – including making complaints and providing feedback.

Providers need to make sure older people know their rights.

Restorative outcomes

The Act focuses on restorative outcomes. This means providers need to try to make the older person feel safe and restore the relationship when responding to complaints. Providers need to:

understand and fix what went wrong (remedy)
restore the older person’s trust and confidence in their care (restore)
stop it from happening again (prevent).

Open disclosure

Open disclosure is an open and honest discussion a provider, worker or responsible person has with an older person when something’s gone wrong that’s caused, or could have caused, harm to the older person. Their supporters can join the discussion too.

Providers need to use open disclosure. This involves:

checking that the older person is okay and providing any support needed
acknowledging the harm and its effect, and saying sorry
finding out what happened and explaining it in a way the older person understands
learning from the experience and letting the older person know how they will stop it from happening again.

You can find more information in our Open Disclosure Framework and Guidance or by watching our What is open disclosure? - video.

Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards

The Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards have two outcome areas (2.6a and 2.6b) that focus on complaints and feedback. These say that providers need to:

encourage and support workers, older people and others to make complaints and give feedback about the provider, without fear of punishment
acknowledge, and openly and honestly handle all complaints and feedback, and use it to continuously improve.

Aged Care Code of Conduct

The Aged Care Code of Conduct describes how aged care providers, responsible persons and workers (including volunteers) must behave and treat people receiving aged care. Requirements relating to complaints include the need to:

promptly take steps to raise and act on concerns about matters that may impact the quality and safety of funded aged care services
take all reasonable steps to prevent and respond to all forms of violence, discrimination, exploitation, neglect and abuse and sexual misconduct.

Tips for resolving complaints

Here are some tips to help you resolve complaints in a way that is open, confidential, quick and fair:

Make it easy to complain. Tell older people and their supporters how they can complain when they first use your service. Remind them often.
Empower older people to understand and use their right to complain without fear of punishment. Make sure they know they can contact us if your service or a worker is not acting in line with their rights.
Create a culture that welcomes feedback and sees complaints as a chance to improve. Complaints are part of providing a good service. It’s how you respond that matters.
Listen carefully to the person making the complaint. Understand their concerns.
Acknowledge what went wrong and how the older person was affected. Apologise. This can help you resolve matters quickly and improve your relationship with the people involved.
Ask what the person making the complaint wants to happen and write it down. Let them know if what they want is possible.
Make sure a senior staff member is in charge of managing and responding to complaints.
Involve the older person in resolving the complaint. Speak with their supporters if they have them.
Start work to resolve the complaint straight away.
Be clear about what you’ll do to resolve the complaint and when you’ll do it. Let them know how long this could take.
Give the older person and their supporters regular updates, even if you don’t have much to report.
At the end of the process, openly and honestly explain what happened and what you did to resolve the complaint. Let the older person and their supporters know how you’ll stop the issue happening again. This is a key part of open disclosure.
Ask the older person and their supporters for feedback on how you handled the complaint.

If you notice something’s gone wrong, talk to the people affected and try to resolve the issue before they make a complaint. This helps build trust and confidence in your service.