Health complaints and carers recognition in Queensland 

This article states the law of Queensland. Two statutes sit beside the aged care and disability systems: the Health Ombudsman Act 2013 (Qld), which governs health service complaints, and the Carers (Recognition) Act 2008 (Qld), which defines who is a carer. On standing to complain, Queensland is the most open of the jurisdictions examined, and that is the first thing to know about it.

Anyone may complain

The Act states the rule without qualification: "Any person may make a health service complaint."¹ The Act then gives examples rather than limits — an individual to whom a health service is provided; a parent, guardian or other representative of such an individual; and a health practitioner with concerns about the health, conduct or performance of another practitioner.

That last example matters. A practitioner raising concerns about a colleague is expressly contemplated as a complainant, which places professional reporting inside the ordinary complaints machinery rather than in a separate channel.

Section 33(1) allows a complaint to be made orally, including by telephone, or in writing, including by email or other electronic means. Section 34(1) permits the health ombudsman to ask a complainant who complained orally to confirm the complaint in writing, but the oral complaint is validly made in the meantime.

Section 33(3) adds an obligation that is easy to pass over: "On request, the health ombudsman must give a person reasonable assistance to make a complaint." That is a duty, not a courtesy, and it matters for a complainant with limited literacy, English or capacity.

Four jurisdictions, four gates on standing

This is now the clearest four-way divergence in the series:

• Queensland — any person may complain, with a duty on the ombudsman to assist.
• Victoria — complain to the provider first, with four defined routes to the Commissioner including where the provider complaint is unresolved after three months.
• New South Wales — any person who demonstrates a genuine concern in the subject matter, subject to an unjustifiable interference bar.
• South Australia — a closed list of capacities, including the donee of a power of attorney and a substitute decision-maker under an advance care directive.

Queensland gates by nothing, Victoria by sequence, New South Wales by connection, South Australia by capacity. An answer that assumes any of these applies elsewhere is wrong three times out of four.

Who is a carer

Section 6(1) defines a carer as an individual who provides, "in a non-contractual and unpaid capacity, ongoing care or assistance to another person who, because of disability, frailty, chronic illness or pain, requires assistance with everyday tasks"².

Three elements do the work. The care must be non-contractual and unpaid, which excludes paid support workers as in the other jurisdictions. It must be ongoing, so episodic help does not qualify. And the other person's need must arise from disability, frailty, chronic illness or pain — a list that includes pain as a standalone ground, which the New South Wales and South Australian definitions do not.

The Act also excludes a person who provides the care or assistance as a volunteer for a voluntary organisation.

The grandparent provisions

Section 6(2) makes express provision that has no counterpart in the other jurisdictions examined. A grandparent is a carer of their grandchild if the child lives with the grandparent and the grandparent is the primary care-giver and decision-maker for the child.

Section 6(3) then guards against over-inclusion. Where the child's parent or parents remain the primary care-givers and decision-makers, the grandparent is not a carer merely because they care for the child while the parents are working, or because the child lives with them together with the parents.

The distinction is between assuming the primary role and assisting someone who holds it. Queensland legislates that line expressly rather than leaving it to the general definition.

The carers charter

Section 7 establishes the Queensland carers charter. As in New South Wales and Victoria, the charter operates through obligations on agencies rather than as a source of individual rights, and a student should establish what the charter requires of the particular body before relying on it.

Applying this in a problem question

1. For standing, apply the open rule and do not look for a category; the listed persons are examples.
2. Note that an oral complaint is validly made, and that written confirmation may be requested afterwards rather than being a precondition.
3. Consider s 33(3) where the complainant needed help to complain and did not receive it.
4. For carer status, apply all three elements of s 6(1): non-contractual and unpaid, ongoing, and a qualifying ground of need.
5. Where a grandparent is involved, work through s 6(2) and then s 6(3) rather than stopping at the first.
6. Do not carry Queensland's open standing rule into another jurisdiction.

Self-check

• Have I treated the listed complainants as examples rather than limits?
• Have I noticed that pain is a standalone ground of need in the Queensland definition?
• Have I applied s 6(3) before treating a grandparent as a carer?
• Have I named this as Queensland law?