It’s okay to speak up
Workers have an important role to play in delivering safe and high-quality aged care and finding ways to keep improving that 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.
You can also share information with us. This information helps us uncover problems and improve the quality and safety of care and keep older people safe.
If you do raise a concern with your provider or us, your provider cannot punish or victimise you for speaking out about problems you see.
Sharing concerns with us
You can talk to us about:
- the way an older person is being treated
- how clean or safe things are
- staffing concerns, like the number or experience of staff
- a provider, responsible person or worker not complying with aged care law
- a provider acting in a way that is incompatible with the Statement of Rights.
What happens when you engage with us
We will:
- listen to your concerns
- determine if an older person is at risk of harm
- confirm how you want your contact to be treated, including whether you wish to be confidential or anonymous
- discuss the outcome you want
- explain what we do and how we can help.
If your complaint is not anonymous, we’ll keep you updated throughout the resolution process, if that’s what you want.
The Aged Care Act includes rights and protections for people who share certain concerns about aged care. To learn more, go to Your rights and protections.
What information to provide
To help us understand your concerns, give us as much detail as you can. You can include:
- your concerns
- names of people involved, including the provider, aged care workers, responsible persons and older people receiving care (if known)
- if there is any risk of harm to an older person
- names of the older person’s family, friends, supporters, visitors or health care providers
- date and time of the incident or problem
- name of the service
- examples of previous or related events (if applicable)
- if you have raised your concerns with the provider and, if not, reasons why you haven’t.
If we can’t help
If your concern is not covered by our functions in the Aged Care Act 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.
