Complaints against AHPRA on the rise

The number of complaints made against the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and its Boards’ notification processes have risen in the past year.
 
As detailed in the National Health Practitioner Ombudsmen’s (NHPO) annual report, the majority of complaints it received were centred on AHPRA, with 435 recorded in 2023–24 compared to 430 the year before.
 
‘We also continued to receive a significant number of registration-related complaints (123 complaints), though we received fewer complaints about a registration matter than in 2022–23 (153 complaints),’ it details.
 
Significantly, the NHPO also reported an increase in the number of issues raised about a complainant’s belief AHPRA ‘failed to identify the vexatious nature of a notification’, with numbers rising from 14 issues in 2021–22, to 44 issues in 2022–23, and 73 issues in 2023–24.
 
In response, an AHPRA spokesperson told newsGP ‘many notifications that are perceived to be vexatious are often the result of a miscommunication or a misunderstanding’.
 
‘A truly vexatious complaint is a complaint that is groundless and made with the intent of causing distress or harm to the subject of the complaint,’ they said.
 
‘However, we recognise that anyone who feels a notification is vexatious is likely to feel more stressed and we have trained our staff to better identify and manage these types of complaints.’

The timeliness of AHPRA in relation to its investigations into practitioners who are subject to an immediate action triggered an own motion investigation by the NHPO, the report reveals.
 
‘We continue to be concerned about the timeliness of immediate action-related processes and investigations into health practitioners subject to immediate action,’ it states.
 
‘For example, we have seen investigations taking longer than two years to complete while a health practitioner remains subject to immediate action.’
 
While the NHPO said it recognised ‘that stakeholder expectations on timeliness may not always align with the practicalities of undertaking complex investigations’, prolonging them can have ‘undue negative impacts on health practitioners’.
 
‘This is particularly true given regulatory action taken in the form of immediate action can have significant financial and mental health repercussions for health practitioners and their families,’ it reads.
 
The most significant change noted by the NHPO was an increase in accreditation-related complaints – which jumped to 79 from 22 in the previous year.
 
‘This includes complaints about AHPRA, the Boards, accreditation authorities and specialist medical colleges,’ it states.
 
But it attributes this increase as likely due to it being the ‘first full financial year where we have been able to accept all accreditation-related complaints’.
 
‘The increase in complaints may also suggest increased awareness about our new role in assisting with complaints related to 32 additional accreditation entities,’ it said.
 
The AHPRA spokesperson said the agency welcomes the annual report.
 
‘The NHPO annual report states that its complaint trends this financial year were relatively consistent with previous years,’ they said.
 
‘Also stated in the annual report, the slight increase in matters being raised with the Ombudsman’s office is likely reflective of an overall increase in notifications (15.4 per cent) received by AHPRA in the past financial year.’
 
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