How to make a complaint or give feedback

Aged care providers need to make sure their services suit the needs of older people and meet their obligations, such as acting in line with the Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards, the Statement of Rights and the Aged Care Code of Conduct. Aged care workers and responsible persons (someone who is responsible for or has significant influence over the work of a provider) need to comply with the Code. Meeting these obligations makes sure that everyone receiving aged care is treated with dignity and respect.

What to do if you have a concern

Talking to the provider or us about your concern can help resolve the issue quickly and improve the quality of care for everyone. It’s safe to speak up. A provider, worker or responsible person can’t punish you or treat you differently for making a complaint. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to the provider, you can speak with us.

Anyone can make a complaint to us, including:

people receiving aged care
family, friends, carers and supporters of people who receive aged care
aged care workers and volunteers
health and medical professionals.

You can stay anonymous if you want. If you're making a complaint for someone else, let them know. They have a right to be involved.

Before you start

Try talking with the provider

Tell your provider about your concerns first, if you can. It’s often the easiest and quickest way to resolve things.

Think about giving feedback

If you’re concerned about the care you (or another person) are receiving from a provider, worker or responsible person, but you don’t want to make a complaint, you can raise your concern with us as feedback. Feedback is less formal than a complaint. You can tell us about your concern, and we will monitor and respond to it without your involvement.

You can find more information in Give feedback.

Start your complaint

Your choice – confidentiality options

You can complain with or without sharing your name. Your complaint can be open, confidential or anonymous.

We can help you best when you share your name with us and the provider, worker or responsible person the complaint is about. This is called an open complaint. It means we can:

involve you in the process
give you updates
check that the outcome meets your needs.

We’re always careful about how we receive, manage and use information you share with us.

We want everyone to feel safe to make a complaint or provide feedback in whatever way suits them. Let us know if you’re worried about the consequences of giving us information. We can talk with you about your options for making a complaint or giving feedback, and how the Aged Care Act 2024 (the Act) protects you.

Open complaint

If you make an open complaint:

we'll know your name and contact details
the provider, worker or responsible person will know your name
we'll keep you informed about the progress of your complaint
you'll be able to give us more information
you'll have review rights (you can ask us to reconsider a decision we make about a complaint).

Confidential complaint

If you make a confidential complaint:

we'll know your name and contact details
we’ll try not to disclose (reveal) your name to the provider, worker or responsible person when we discuss your complaint with them
we'll keep you informed about the progress of your complaint
you'll be able to give us more information
you'll have review rights.

Anonymous complaint

If you make an anonymous complaint:

we won't know your name
the provider, worker or responsible person won't know your name
we won't be able to keep you informed about the progress of your complaint
you won't be able to give us more information
you won't have review rights.

Tips for making a complaint

Write down your concerns

Writing down all your concerns can help you put the information together in a logical way. This makes it easier for us or the provider, worker or responsible person to understand what’s happened. It also gives you a written record of your concerns.

Focus on facts

Feeling upset, angry or frustrated about things that affect you or your loved one is understandable. If you’re an aged care worker or a health professional, you may feel concerned about the safety and wellbeing of older people.

However, to help us and the provider, worker or responsible person assess your complaint, it’s best to stick to the facts when you describe what happened.

Include important information

Try to include as many details as you can, as soon as you can. For example, names, dates and locations. This helps us to address and start resolving the complaint as early as we can.

Be clear about what you want

Think about what you want to happen because of your complaint. The outcome you want should be reasonable, achievable and in the best interests of the older person.

For example, you may want:

an apology to the older person
an explanation of what happened
evidence of the provider using safer practices
a plan from the provider to prevent the problem happening again.

Ask for help

Making a complaint can be confronting. Especially if you have a relationship with the provider or are an employee.

You can ask a friend, family member or supporter to help you write your complaint. You can find out more about your options for support in Supporters.

You can also have an advocate for support. An advocate can:

help you make decisions that affect your quality of life
explain your rights and responsibilities
discuss the actions you can take
support you when you make a complaint to us or a provider
help you at any stage of the complaint process.

The Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN) offers a free, confidential service. You can call them on 1800 700 600.

Your rights and protections

An important way we learn about things going wrong in aged care is when people share information with us.

If people don’t share their concerns, issues and wrongdoing may not be reported and may go unnoticed.

When you share information, it helps:

to uphold the rights of older people receiving care
to protect and enhance the safety, health, wellbeing and quality of life for older people
to encourage providers to be transparent (open and honest) and accountable
us to identify and respond to risks to older people receiving care.

To make sure people are confident to speak up, there are whistleblower protections in the Act. They protect people sharing information with us where they believe the law has been broken.

Where people share information which indicates someone else (a provider or person) may not be meeting their responsibilities under aged care law this is known as a qualifying disclosure.

Anyone who makes a qualifying disclosure can seek whistleblower protections. This is why we treat all disclosures as if they do qualify for protection.

Anyone who shares information with us can choose to be anonymous or have their information remain confidential.

For more information, see:

How we can help you

If you have a complaint that you haven’t been able to resolve by talking with the provider, we can help you.

When you contact us, we’ll listen to you. We’ll ask you questions so we understand your complaint and the outcome you want. We’ll let you know if what you want is possible.

What we can do

We can help you with complaints about:

a provider, worker or responsible person not meeting their obligations under the Act
a provider not acting in line with the Statement of Rights. For example, not respecting older people’s rights to:
be treated with dignity and respect
make a complaint
receive care that is safe, high quality, meets their needs and helps them to live their best life.
personal care, such as services that help someone to shower, take medication, eat or move around
communication, for example how a provider, worker or responsible person shares information with you and responds to your questions or complaints
staff roles, for example how workers do their job and care for you
your living environment, for example safety, security and cleaning
some fees and charges.

We carefully and fairly assess the facts and evidence we have for each complaint.

What we can’t do

We can’t:

give advice on the availability of care or services in your local area
give advice on who should make financial, legal or health decisions on behalf of an older person
give legal advice or advice about what to include in your care agreement
give clinical advice about what treatment you should receive
determine the cause of death (this is the Coroner’s role).

Even when a complaint relates to an issue we can look at, we may not be able to act. For example, if the issue is part of legal proceedings or a coronial inquiry, or the older person doesn’t want us to examine the complaint.

If we can’t help you, we can refer your complaint to an organisation that may be able to help. For example, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, professional registration boards or other complaints bodies.