Our role is to support people who have concerns and complaints about a provider’s responsibilities. We will work with you and a complainant to resolve complaints and achieve meaningful outcomes.

The Complaints Commissioner is a separate statutory appointment in the Commission. This means they’re independent from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner. Having an independent Complaints Commissioner is important for transparency and accountability of complaints handling.

We may take action on any complaint, including complaints about: 

• health care, for example wound care, medication and care assessment
• personal care, for example showering, dispensing medication, feeding and mobility
• communication, for example how information is shared with people receiving care and how you respond to their questions, including complaints
• staff roles, for example how they do their job and provide care
• living environment, for example safety, security, and cleaning
• some fees and charges in care agreements
• choice and preferences, for example showering and meal arrangements and tailored activities.

Learn more about our role in complaints handling in:

• The complaints process – detailed explanation of our role and yours in the complaints process, with key links.

You must have strong complaints and feedback systems that supports people to make complaints. You must show that you encourage and support older people to give feedback or complaints. 

Older people must be told that they have a right to complain, and how to do it. 

People also have the right to have their complaints dealt with fairly and promptly. This means you mustn’t delay handling complaints. 

People have the right to complain free from reprisal. This means they mustn’t receive unfair or negative treatment from your organisation because they’ve made a complaint. 

You must make efforts to resolve complaints within your organisation, but you must also tell the person how they can raise their concerns with us.

Most complaints should be handled within your organisation. Your organisation should have better practice complaints handling processes in place. Better practice complaints handling processes are fair, accessible, responsive and efficient. 

Once a complaint is made, you should follow a clear process to reach a fair outcome. Your organisation must use open disclosure and restorative practices. 

There’s detailed guidance online to help you use good practices in complaints handling. 

Learn more about better practice complaints handling in: 

• What to do if you have a complaint – key steps and links to complain about an aged care service.

Restorative practices inform our complaints handling decisions. 

When there’s a problem, we encourage open communication between the affected individuals. Restorative practices aim to reach an outcome where the provider is accountable for fixing the problem, and trust in the service is restored. 

Learn more about restorative practices in: 

Regulatory Strategy 2024–25 – section 2.4 provides a brief overview of the principle of restorative practices. 
 

Open disclosure is the open discussion a provider has with an older person when something goes wrong and has caused harm or could cause harm.

Providers should support older people to: 

• make informed choices
• have control
• actively take part in their care.

This includes having honest conversations when something goes wrong. 

This means you must listen to older people to understand what’s important to them. The care you deliver must be based on an ongoing partnership with older people. Clear communication at the right times helps support this partnership. 

Open disclosure discussions may also involve the older person’s supporters, family, carers, other support people and representatives, when an older person wants them to be involved. 
 

If a person is asked to leave a residential care home, they have the right to access your complaints resolution process.

They also have the right to access any other processes available to address complaints, including our complaints processes. 

You must include information about how to access these complaints processes in the written notice you give to a person before they leave your service. 

The right to complain free of reprisal means you mustn’t stop people from making a complaint when they’re leaving your service.