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Feedback and complaints

Participating in our peer support service

Nurse Midwife Health Program Australia (Nurse Midwife HPA) is committed to providing a safe, high-quality service. We recognise that feedback and complaints help the program to improve its services and responses. 

We welcome your feedback and encourage you to share your thoughts by visiting the contact section of our webpage. We are committed to ensuring that disputes, complaints, and grievances are resolved by fair processes that uphold all participants' rights, dignity, privacy, and confidentiality.

When we deal with a complaint, we will:

  • act promptly
  • prevent victimisation of the complainant
  • ensure that disruptions to accessing our service are minimised
  • support all parties
  • be objective - the person investigating the complaint will be neutral
  • keep all parties informed, mainly if there are delays
  • maintain confidentiality
  • document the complaint and key actions
  • use information about complaints for planning and improving our program.

General 

Our staff will inform participants about how they can exercise their rights, particularly their right to provide feedback or make a complaint.

We will inform participants of the feedback and complaint procedures verbally and in writing at their initial contact or as soon as practical and appropriate.

We encourage participants to give feedback about support services. We invite positive feedback as well as concerns and complaints.

We will ensure that all participants are informed about their right to:

  • confidentially and respect
  • representation at all stages by an advocate of their choice
  • a response without fear of reprisal.

We will promptly address all complaints about any aspect of our program and ensure that participants feel comfortable continuing to access the service after making a complaint.

All complaints, whether informal or formal, verbal or in writing, must be logged in our incident register.

Serious allegations

Our CEO and the hub coordinator must be informed if the complaint involves serious allegations of:

  • harassment
  • professional misconduct
  • fraud
  • assault (including sexual assault)

These complaints will be investigated.

Verbal complaints

These are complaints made to a staff member where the complainant doesn’t want to take formal action or lodge a written complaint. The staff member who takes the complaint must respond immediately. No further action is needed if the person making the complaint is satisfied with the response.

It is a participant’s right to choose to make a verbal complaint, but our staff will encourage participants to make complaints in writing. This helps avoid any miscommunication or misunderstanding from a verbal exchange. Our staff will assist and support the complainant in formulating and submitting the written complaint if required.

If someone wishes to make a verbal complaint about one of our staff members, they should contact the hub co-ordinator. Our staff members will supply the coordinator’s correct phone number or email or take the complainant’s number and arrange for the hub coordinator to call them.

Written complaints

Formal written complaints are likely to be about: 

  • dissatisfaction that a verbal complaint has not been resolved and needs further action
  • allegations about a staff member’s behaviour or professional conduct
  • standards of service received or the failure of a service to meet needs
  • policy and procedures, processes or program access issues
  • perceived contravention of the complainant’s rights.

The complainant will be invited to submit their complaint via email or in a letter. The complaint will then be sent to the relevant hub coordinator and the CEO.

If the complaint is about the CEO, the complainant should be referred to the Board Chairperson.

Once the complaint has been received and documented as an incident, these steps must be taken:

  1. acknowledge that the complaint has been received - within two working days (CEO)
  2. advise that the matter will be investigated and the expected time frame for a response
  3. nominate who is to investigate – the CEO or an appropriate person
  4. inform all parties named in the complaint – unless it is perceived that this may have a legal or ethical implication
  5. investigate and resolve the complaint within 21 days of receipt, where possible
  6. respond to the complainant in writing (by CEO or hub co-ordinators) 
  7. add the complaint to the monthly incident report.

Written complaints that the CEO deems serious will be brought to the board's attention with an accompanying briefing paper.

Failure to resolve a complaint to the complainant’s satisfaction

If the matter cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant, we will:

  • offer further discussions with our CEO
  • encourage complainants to seek further assistance from a suitable local independent service relevant to their complaint.