There are several organisations who consider complaints or concerns about health practitioners or students. We want to help you identify the right organisation for you, so that the concerns can be considered as quickly as possible.
Ahpra is the right place if you are concerned that a health practitioner may be behaving in a way that could present a significant risk to you, to other patients or members of the public. There are different arrangements for people in Qld and NSW for managing concerns about registered health practitioners. See further information.
Any person or organisation can raise a concern with Ahpra if they have concerns about a registered health practitioner or student. The person who raises the concern is called ‘the notifier’. The National Law provides protection from civil, criminal and administrative liability for people who make a notification in good faith.
You can submit a concern by phone, through our online portal, or by email or post. We acknowledge that we have received all concerns in writing, and give a reference number for each notification.
The practitioner is also usually contacted and advised that a concern has been raised about them.
You can also download and complete a PDF form.
Expand the links below for more information on making a notification with Ahpra about a registered health practitioner or student.
Below are some examples of concerns that we can consider. Contact us if you are not sure and we can help you get in touch with the right agency.
Concerns that a practitioner is working or providing patient care in an unsafe way, such as:
Concerns about the way a practitioner behaves, including:
Concerns that a practitioner has a health issue or impairment that might cause harm to a member of the public if it is not appropriately managed, including that a practitioner might have a problem with alcohol or drugs.
If you want an apology, an explanation or a review of the care or treatment a health practitioner provided to you, you should first contact the health service or centre where you received the care or contact a health complaints organisation in your state or territory.
Under the National Law, concerns are called ‘notifications’. This is because you are ‘notifying’ Ahpra and the National Board about your concern.
We use the term ‘notifier’ for the person raising a concern about a registered health practitioner or student.
Ahpra and the National Boards only manage concerns about registered health practitioners or students, people pretending to be registered health practitioners or about people advertising regulated health services usually provided by registered health practitioners.
A registered health practitioner is someone who is registered to practise as one of the following:
If you want to make a notification about a health practitioner in a profession that is not listed above, or if your complaint is about a health service or a health service provider, your local health complaints organisation may be able to help.
Ahpra and National Boards assess every concern raised. Concerns are recorded on our internal database. This which helps us keep track of the sorts of concerns people have raised about a single practitioner specifically, and regulated health practitioners as a whole.
We call concerns notifications.
When we receive a notification, we look at whether the practitioner is practising appropriately and safely. We also consider the practitioner’s history with the National Board to see if there is an emerging or existing pattern of behaviour that may need to be considered.
Sometimes a practitioner and/or their employer will have taken some action in response to the concern that has been raised with us. We ask the practitioner and/or their employer to tell us about this response because their actions may be enough to manage the risk of the same thing happening again. If this is the case, we don’t need to take any regulatory action.
Most notifications end up with no regulatory action from us because most one-off events can be resolved by the practitioner and their workplace(s).
Some notifications, or series of notifications result in practitioners being investigated. This happens when we believe that there could be some risk to the public but we need more information. Most investigations we carry out enable us to gather information about the:
We present information about individual practitioners who might not be practising appropriately and safely to the National Board who registered the individual. Ahpra and the National Boards can take action that might affect a health practitioner’s registration if we believe it is necessary to keep the public safe.
After considering the information the National Board will take action to protect the public if it finds that a health practitioner’s:
If a National Board believes that it needs to take action to make sure the public is safe, it can:
Ahpra and the National Boards are responsible for making sure that only health practitioners who have the appropriate skills and qualifications to provide safe, ethical care are registered to practise, so we take every concern we receive seriously.
The fact that a concern has been raised does not automatically affect a practitioner’s ability to practise. A National Board will only take action to restrict a practitioner’s registration if it believes this is necessary to protect the public.
Concerned about a health practitioner and want to check if the concern is something Ahpra can help you with? Find out more information at Concerned about a health practitioner?
Watch our video to help decide if Ahpra is the right place for your concerns. Don't forget to press pause to make note of important information in the video, or find further information below.
Ahpra and the National Boards have a responsibility to protect the public. This means that we take seriously all concerns received about health practitioners and follow up on all information that suggests there could be a risk to the public.
When you submit a concerns about a registered health practitioner or student, we will use that information to assess whether or not there is a risk to the public.
Once you provide a name or any details that will identify the health practitioner, the National Law requires us to assess your concern.
We will need to consider the matter even if you decide not to continue with the process or if you want to withdraw your concern.
If you are unsure about raising your concerns, you can contact us and ask general questions about Ahpra or the process.
When raising a concern with Ahpra about a registered health practitioner or student, you can expect us to be:
We can understand and manage the concern more easily if you use clear and simple language.
The information below may help you when telling us about the concern:
We understand that telling us about the concern can be stressful or upsetting. If you would like to talk to someone about the process, contact us on 1300 419 495 or please read our help and support information.
Ahpra and the National Boards collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to carry out functions required by law.
Our Privacy Policy sets out how our staff (and any relevant consultants or contractors) and National Board members protect any personal information collected or held by us.
Personal information means information and/or opinion about an identified individual (or an individual who is reasonably identifiable). This includes information received over the phone, in person, in meetings, by mail and/or by email.
We act to ensure that personal information is protected in a number of ways, including restricting access to personal information, and sharing and securing information through secure networks.
By law, members of Ahpra and the National Boards (and anyone carrying out work on behalf of Ahpra or the National Boards) must not record or share information unless:
We may use information we have collected for planning, evaluation, research and improving our services and functions. Where appropriate and feasible, we will de-identify information used for these purposes.
Our website may also record and log information about users of the website for statistical purposes and to help improve our services.
You are welcome to contact us to request access to the personal information we hold about you or to request corrections to your personal information.
By law we need to tell a registered health practitioner when a notification is made about them. A practitioner has a right to respond to a notification. This means we must give the practitioner enough information about the concerns to allow them to respond.
There are two sets of personal information that are relevant: the personal information of a patient and the personal information of a notifier.
Sometimes, the notifier and the patient are the same person.
If the concern is about care provided to a patient, it is almost always necessary to tell the practitioner who the patient is to allow the practitioner to respond to the notification.
We will also tell the practitioner the notifier’s name if this is necessary to allow the practitioner to respond to the notification.
In general, we will let you know before we tell the practitioner the notifier’s name or other personal information about the notifier. However, you can request that we do not share the notifier’s name with the practitioner (see information below about Confidential and Anonymous notifications and Limitations on raising concerns confidentially or anonymously).
We cannot avoid sharing the patient’s name with the practitioner.
We accept notifications made on a confidential basis. This means that we do not share personal information about the notifier (such as the notifier’s name) with other entities. This includes the health practitioner who the concerns have been raised about.
While we will do our best to ensure the notifier’s name is not released to the practitioner, it is sometimes possible for practitioners to assume or guess the notifier, based on the nature of the notification.
In some circumstances we may be compelled to share information about a confidential notification with others (for example, where the matter is the subject of legal proceedings or the practitioner makes a request for access to information under the Freedom of Information Act).
Notifications can be made anonymously. This means we do not record your name as the notifier.
We may assign a pseudonym (a false name) for a notifier who wishes to make a notification anonymously.
Mandatory notifications cannot be made anonymously.
If you have provided us with contact information for you, including email addresses or phone numbers, we may be compelled to release these. We will talk to you before we release any personal information about an anonymous notifier.
We ask that people who want to make anonymous or confidential notifications clearly explain this when they first contact us. While we understand that you may be cautious about what information we will share about sensitive matters, it is important that we are provided with as much information as possible so we can comprehensively assess the matter.
We always do our best to help people in telling us about their concerns. However, it may be difficult (and sometimes impossible) for us to assess or manage the concerns without knowing your name and contact details.
This is because:
Ideally, anonymous or confidential notifications should be made by phone so we can check your and our understanding of the concerns being raised and discuss any limitations we may face in progressing the matter.
When you submit a concern about a health practitioner or student, we gather information to assess whether there is a risk to the public. This information will help us determine whether regulatory action is needed to protect the public.
It is important that you know and understand your rights and our obligations if or when you consent to the collection, use or disclose of your personal information. The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) regulates Ahpra’s and the National Boards’ collection, use and disclosure of personal information. The Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, as in force in each state and territory (the National Law), also imposes strict confidentiality obligations.
You can find more information about how Ahpra and the National Boards collect, hold, use and disclose personal information in the Privacy section of our website. The Privacy section includes our Privacy Policy, which explains: how you may access and seek correction of your personal or sensitive information held by Ahpra and the National Boards; how to complain to Ahpra about a breach of your privacy; and how your concerns will be dealt with.
If you want to raise a concern about a health practitioner or student, we will ask for your consent to use and share your information. Your consent is provided in writing by completing a consent form through the portal or which we can send to you. Written consent is also required if you would like another person to act on your behalf or if the patient does not have the capacity to make decisions or the patient is deceased. This is because throughout the process we will provide the party acting on your behalf or on behalf of the patient with all relevant information related to the matter.
We will generally seek the personal information required directly from you. However, we may also be required to obtain information from other people or other agencies about you. This might include third party witness statements, government agencies such as Medicare or health services and hospitals.
When you raise a concern with us and we receive consent to collect, use or disclose personal information, the ways we might carry this out can include (but are not limited to) collection directly from an individual or organisation either in person, by hard copy or electronic correspondence, over the telephone, and via the internet.
Generally, we will inform the practitioner or student that a concern has been made about them and may disclose your personal information with the practitioner or student if you consent to this or, if it is required by law, provide them with your personal information.This is because the practitioner or student has the right to respond to the concerns raised and assists them to provide their response.
Examples of exceptions to informing the practitioner or student about the concern or providing your personal information may include where we believe it would:
You can elect to remain anonymous or confidential when you raise your concerns to us, but this may limit our ability to effectively investigate your concern, and there may be limitations on the information we can then provide to you. You can find more information under Anonymous concerns and Providing your name to the practitioner (above).
To improve the way we work and what we do, we may use your information in monitoring, reporting and training our staff. This might include asking you to participate in a survey or using statistical data already collected to improve process and procedure. An analysis of any statistical information may be published in our annual report, or in reports provided to our stakeholders.
When we use information in these ways, we remove any personal or identifiable information and ensure the careful control over security and confidentiality.
We receive a range of concerns about registered health practitioners that are related to their health, performance or conduct.
Concerns could be about a practitioner being unable to meet the standard expected by their profession and the public because of the way they behave, the way they practise their profession or because of a physical or mental health impairment.
Common types of concerns we receive relate to:
Further information about the concerns we receive is published each year in our Annual Report.