Health Complaints Commissioner (Tas)
A short factsheet on Tasmania's Health Complaints Commissioner: its establishing Act and its complaint-resolution function for health and disability service providers.
Learning outcomes
- State the Tasmanian Health Complaints Commissioner's establishing Act and its complaint-resolution function for health and disability service providers.
Act: Health Complaints Act 1995 (Tas).1
Established: The Governor appoints, and a Schedule carries the detail. Section 5(1) provides that the Governor may appoint a person as Health Complaints Commissioner, and s 5(2) makes Schedule 3 effective with respect to the Commissioner and the appointment. No body corporate is created. Compare Tasmania's Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, appointed by the Minister for a term capped at five years: two Tasmanian complaint-handling offices, two different appointing authorities.
Purpose: The Commissioner receives and attempts to resolve complaints about the conduct of health and disability service providers in Tasmania — a sector-specific complaints body, structured the same way as WA's Health and Disability Services Complaints Office, which has its own factsheet.
Where the authority sits
The functions in s 6 begin with preparing and regularly reviewing a Charter of Health Rights, then identifying and reviewing issues arising out of complaints and suggesting improvements to health services, and providing information, education and advice about the Charter, health rights and responsibilities, and the procedures for resolving complaints. The Charter obligation is statutory, not discretionary.
Powers conferred under the Act
The Commissioner can investigate a complaint, facilitate conciliation between the complainant and provider, and, in appropriate cases, refer serious conduct to the relevant professional registration board for disciplinary action. It does not itself discipline a registered health practitioner.
Is it a prosecuting authority?
No. The Act creates offences, including taking a reprisal against a person because they made or may make a complaint (s 68), but confers no prosecution function on the Commissioner. The office resolves complaints and reports; prosecuting an offence under the Act is for the ordinary prosecuting authority.
How it relates to the other Tasmanian bodies
A complaint specifically about a health or disability service provider's conduct goes to this Commissioner; a broader complaint about general government administration goes to the Tasmanian Ombudsman instead — the same sector-specific-versus-general split that operates for other jurisdictions' health complaints bodies.
Self-check
- Have I described the Commissioner's role as sector-specific complaint resolution, not general administrative complaints?
- Have I recognised that serious conduct is referred to a professional board, not disciplined by the Commissioner directly?