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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2337 ..

3

The amendments to the Health Complaints Act 1993 have been developed in consultation with the Commissioner for Health Complaints and with advice from the Government Solicitor.

The expanded role of the Commissioner will cover only services which are specifically provided for aged people and/or for people with disabilities. It does not cover mainstream services which may be accessed by aged people and people with disabilities.

The Health Complaints Act 1993 also states that the Commissioner will not investigate a complaint where another appropriate mechanism is available. The Commissioner's role therefore remains quite distinct from the roles of the Community Advocate, the Ombudsman and the ACT Discrimination Commissioner.

In 1996-97 $40,000, and recurrent funding of $87,000 per annum, has been allocated from the ACT Home and Community Care program to fund the expansion of the Commissioner's role.

The Commissioner will work in cooperation with service providers to ensure that they have effective and accessible internal complaints mechanisms and processes in place.

The customer service standards recently agreed by the Government require that all public contact areas and major internal service delivery areas will have in place formal and effective complaints handling processes. These will satisfy the standards in the Australian Standards for complaints handling and will be underpinned by an ACT Public Service Training initiative.

These standards and the Commitment to Service Statements of the ACT Public Service support the principle that complaints be dealt with as close to the point of service as possible and that external mechanisms be used only where more direct mechanisms are unsuccessful or may place the consumer at risk.

The Commissioner will also carry out a comprehensive information/education process for stakeholders to ensure that the new mechanism is known and understood. This process will be carried out in consultation with consumer and service provider representatives and the Department of Health and Community Care.

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