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The Office of the Health Ombudsman is the official health complaints agency for Queensland. It is an independent statutory body and provides a free health complaints reviews process for all Queenslanders.
You can make a complaint via:
However, before you start the complaints process, you must make sure you have the required information on hand. This page explains the information you will need and the things you need to do to ensure your complaint is reviewed with due consideration.
You can make a complaint against the following if they are Queensland based;
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The Health Ombudsman has a range of powers including:
It does not have the power to award financial compensation - The Office of the Health Ombudsman in Queensland does not have the right to award compensation for any complaint about medical negligence to cover items such as past and future loss of earnings, cost of ongoing care requirements or pain and suffering.
If you are looking to seek medical negligence compensation then a complaint to the ombudsman is still an important step. However, you will also need to seek advice from medical negligence lawyers.
You can get free and no-obligation advice from our expert medical negligence lawyers by calling 1800 094 603 or requesting a call back via the chat widget to the bottom right of your screen.
The Health Ombudsman makes it clear in its complaints process that you should first raise your concerns directly with your health care provider to see if complaints can be resolved directly.
As the Health Ombudsman asks you to confirm if you have raised the issue with your health care provider directly this should be considered an important step and is likely to ensure your complaint is taken seriously.
Complaints to your health care provider can be made via any method including:
However, it’s recommended that you include a written channel that can be referred back to. For example, if you raise the concern initially in a meeting or over the phone then it may be good to email the person concerned a summary of what you believed was said and what expectations there are to resolve the issue.
Raising concerns directly may solve the issue, especially for issues that can be solved with an apology, refund, further free/discounted corrective treatment, or a change in the treating provider.
For more significant issues:
Before you go to submit your complaint, try to gather or think through the following information;
Provide a summary of what happened and what went wrong in your view.
Complaints could relate to factors such as:
Try to provide as precise information as possible such as the name and position of each person involved.
If you don’t have names for everyone or anyone then just provide the best you can such as:
Try to be as specific as possible. For small locations such as GP clinics or dental clinics then the name of the centre may be sufficient.
If the incident happened at a large location such as a hospital then provide the most specific information you have such as:
Provide the date (day, month, and year) that it happened OR the time period with as much accuracy as possible.
If you had an appointment time then provide that as part of the information.
You should have stated what went wrong but you also need to list your ongoing concerns as a result of the issue you encountered.
These could include concerns about the quality of care that may impact future patients such as:
Or there could be ongoing direct impacts due to reasons such as:
Bring together any other supporting documents you have to back up your complaint.
These may include;
It’s important that you have raised the issue with the health care provider directly before making the ombudsman complaint.
Provide details of when, how, and to whom you raised the issue directly to the health care provider and what their response was.
Provide a copy of any written response in your submission.
Please try to state clearly what action you want the Health Ombudsman to take and/or the outcome you are hoping for.
Types of things you want to happen could include:
If the negligent act of a health care provider in Queensland has created long-term impacts such as economic loss then you may also be entitled to medical negligence compensation. This is not something the health ombudsman can help directly with but a complaint should still be made to allow them to investigate and provide an outcome to the complaint.
Now you’ve gathered all the information you can lodge the complaint. The easiest method to ensure you can provide all the required evidence is to make the complaint online via the Health Ombudsman website but you can also download a printable form or start the complaint process over the phone.
You can make a complaint via:
You should get a reference number for your complaint and be advised on the next steps. Your claim will be reviewed and you may be asked for more information if required before a response is provided.
To get advice on making a Queensland medical negligence claim then call us now on 1800 094 603 or request a call back online via the chat widget.
