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In an emergency, you can always seek treatment at a hospital emergency department.
If you have concerns about your cosmetic surgery experience or if something serious happens, it’s generally best to start with the person who provided the service. They will often be well placed to address your concerns.
Even if your individual concerns are addressed by the practitioner who provided the service, you can also report any ongoing concerns about public safety to Cosmetic Surgery Hotline – 1300 361 041. If we know about your concerns, we can investigate them. Patients can make confidential complaints and we won’t tell the practitioner the name of the person who complained
The Cosmetic Surgery Hotline – 1300 361 041 is run by a specialised team supporting the newly established Cosmetic Surgery Enforcement Unit. This team understands the challenges for patients who are unsure about whether to report their experiences and where to report their experiences. The team can help patients to share relevant information and guide them through the process.
If there is another agency or body better placed to help you, hotline staff will help connect you to them.
Patients who are dissatisfied with a service provided by a registered health practitioner often raise their concerns and even seek compensation directly from the practitioner. Sometimes these claims are resolved between the patient and the practitioner, who then also sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) about it.
An NDA is a contract in which a person agrees not to disclose certain confidential information to other people, called third parties.
Some people who have signed an NDA, might also want to make a notification to Ahpra about the performance or conduct of the practitioner to help prevent other patients having the same experience. We can only protect other patients when we are aware of what happened.
We think that NDAs do not prevent patients from making a notification. However, if you have signed an NDA and want to make a notification to Ahpra, we encourage you to check with your lawyer to make sure they have no concerns about you raising your concern with us in a notification.
Section 237 of the National Law is relevant to this. This section means that someone who, in good faith, makes a notification or provides information under the National Law, is not liable civilly, criminally or under an administrative process for giving information.