Health Care Complaints Commission (NSW)
A short factsheet on the HCCC: the NSW body that investigates health-service complaints and can itself prosecute registered practitioners before NCAT.
Learning outcomes
- State the HCCC's establishing Act and its complaint-handling function for NSW health services.
- Explain that, unlike most bodies in this overlay set, the HCCC can itself prosecute a complaint against a registered practitioner before NCAT.
- Distinguish the HCCC's sector-specific complaints role from the NSW Ombudsman's general administration complaints role.
Act: Health Care Complaints Act 1993 (NSW).1
Established: 1993, subsuming the former Health Complaints Unit and adding conciliation and prosecution powers.
Purpose: The HCCC receives, assesses and investigates complaints about the professional conduct, clinical care and administrative practices of registered and unregistered health service providers in NSW. The protection of public health and safety is the paramount consideration in how it exercises its functions.
Powers conferred under the Act
The Commission investigates complaints and assesses whether a matter is serious enough to warrant prosecution. Depending on the profession and the seriousness of the conduct, a matter can be prosecuted before the Occupational Division of NCAT or a Professional Standards Committee, or dealt with by referral to the relevant NSW Health Professional Council.
Is it a prosecuting authority?
Yes, in a specific and limited sense. This is the one factsheet in this overlay set where the answer is genuinely "yes," and it is worth getting exactly right: the HCCC's Director of Proceedings can prosecute a complaint against a registered health practitioner before NCAT's Occupational Division. This is a real structural difference from Western Australia's Health and Disability Services Complaints Office, which resolves complaints only by investigation and conciliation and has no prosecuting function at all. The HCCC's prosecuting power is still narrow — it is limited to disciplinary proceedings against registered practitioners, not a general criminal prosecution power over the public.
How it relates to the other NSW bodies
Complaints about a hospital's clinical service or a practitioner's conduct sit with the HCCC; complaints about how an unrelated NSW agency handled an administrative matter sit with the NSW Ombudsman instead. Where the HCCC does prosecute, the matter is heard by NCAT's Occupational Division, not by the HCCC itself sitting as a decision-maker.
Self-check
- Have I stated correctly that the HCCC can prosecute registered practitioners before NCAT, rather than assuming every health complaints body is conciliation-only?
- Have I distinguished this narrow disciplinary prosecuting power from a general criminal prosecution power?
- Have I noted the contrast with WA's HaDSCO, which has no prosecuting function at all?