It’s okay to speak up
It’s okay to raise a concern or complaint about aged care or your workplace. Your feedback helps improve the quality and safety of aged care.
If you’re worried about how an older person is being treated or the care they’re receiving, it’s important to tell someone. You can:
- speak to your employer
- contact us.
Concerns you can raise with us
You can talk to us about:
- the way an older person is being treated
- how clean things are
- issues with staffing, like the number or experience of staff
- a worker not complying with the Code of Conduct for Aged Care
- provider responsibilities under aged care law.
What happens when you contact us
We will:
- listen to your concerns
- discuss the outcome you want
- explain what we do and how we can help
- resolve the issue as quickly as possible
- let you know the outcome, where we can.
What information should you provide?
To help us understand your concerns and provide the best response, give us as much detail as you can. You can include:
- names of who was involved, including the provider, workers and older people
- names of the older person’s family, friends, representative, visitors or health care providers
- date and time of the incident or issue
- name of the service
- your concerns
- examples of previous or related events
- if you have raised your concerns with the provider.
If we can’t help
If your concern is outside our role and we can’t help you, we’ll tell you who to contact.
For registered health practitioners
If you’re a registered health practitioner or employ a registered health practitioner, you may need to raise your concern or complaint with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra).
This is to make sure you meet mandatory reporting requirements under Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.
Ahpra works with 15 national boards to make sure that registered health practitioners are trained, qualified and safe to practise.
See the Ahpra website for information about mandatory reporting.
