What you can expect from us

About

The Ahpra service charter (Service charter), launched in April 2022, sets the standard of service you can expect when interacting with us. It’s our commitment to you.

The Service charter identifies five high-level principles which guide our work to meet our vision for communities to have trust and confidence in regulated health practitioners. The charter then steps out those principles in clearly articulated commitments for our interactions with you.

Our new Service charter is an important part of our regulatory toolkit. It complements the Regulatory Principles, and Regulatory Guide and the National Scheme Strategy. We work to several overarching strategies, guides and principles which are intentionally designed to work together.

Download a PDF version of the Ahpra service charter (68.4 KB, PDF)

Ahpra service charter

This charter is our commitment to you. It is the standard of service you can expect from us.

These service principles guide our work to meet our vision for communities to have trust and confidence in regulated health practitioners.

Fair and respectful

We will treat you fairly and with respect.

We will listen to you.

Transparent

We will be clear about what is/isn’t possible and share everything we can.

Responsive

We will act in a timely way.

We will keep you informed about what is going on, what to expect and when.

Empathic

We will respect your point of view and try to understand your situation.

Accountable

We will offer an explanation and apology when a mistake is made.

We will encourage your feedback so we can continually improve.

When you contact us for information, we aim to:

generally respond to your phone call or email within 5 business days
avoid handing you from person to person
only refer you to a formal process, such as FOI, where an informal one isn’t possible
give an explanation if we are unable to complete your request or if we can’t provide information to you.

When you seek or renew registration, we aim to:

provide a time estimate for your application to be assessed
contact you if we need more information from you
finalise your application within 10 business days, once we have everything we need, unless your application is complex or needs to be referred to a Board. We will let you know if we are referring your application to a National Board.

When you raise a concern* about a practitioner, we aim to:

talk to you about the concern and listen to your experience
recognise that your concern is important to you and that the experience may be challenging
tell you what to expect and when
update you as things progress, or a change occurs
provide reasons which explain the decision that has been made.

When you have a concern raised about you, we aim to:

call to tell you that we have received a concern
recognise that being the subject of a concern may be confronting and that the experience may be challenging
tell you what to expect and when
update you as things progress, or a change occurs
provide reasons which explain the decision that has been made.

When there are changes to your registration, we aim to:

update the online public register within 1 business day of changes being finalised
establish a monitoring plan for you within 30 business days of the decision, if restrictions are imposed on your registration.

If you make an administrative complaint about Ahpra, we aim to:

acknowledge and try to resolve your complaint within 2 business days
if more complex, respond within 20 business days
provide information about how to raise your concern with the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman (NHPO) if we are unable to resolve your complaint.

*Note that in NSW, Ahpra does not normally manage concerns.