The latest from the Health Complaints Commissioner No images? Click here Update from the Commissioner Welcome to our first update for the 2021/2022 financial year. We have much to share and hope you find the following information useful. Despite Victoria's ongoing lockdowns, our staff have been working extremely hard to ensure that we continue to play our part in supporting safe and ethical healthcare. In looking at ways to continuously improve our services, we have updated our website and would welcome your feedback. Our annual report is soon to be released and provides a great overview of all our work for the last twelve months in this most extraordinary environment. We have dealt with in excess of 5,000 complaints, and handled a further 2,500 enquiries and continue to work with health service providers to help them improve their services. The report highlights how we are becoming increasingly aware of a trend in the rise of general health providers conducting unsafe and unethical Cosmetic, Massage and Counselling/Psychotherapy treatments. We remind all Victorians, that if you or someone you know has any concerns about the provision of health services in Victoria, or whether a health service should or should not be operating, you should contact our office on 1300 582 133 or via our website. Finally, if you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your colleagues. If not, or if there is something else you'd prefer to see or have covered or information that may be important to you, then let us know. Karen Cusack Health Complaints Commissioner
Latest News Our new and improved website is live. We are delighted to announce that we have launched our refreshed website. Our 'for providers' tab has information on Complaint Handling Standards, Investigations, Health Records information, Privacy and several other areas of interest to general health service providers. We hope the site will make it easier for you to find information you need. If not, we would welcome your feedback via the following link. Latest Prohibition Orders The Commissioner has made several Interim Prohibition Orders this month while she conducts investigations into general health service providers whom she reasonably believes have contravened a code of conduct. We have noted, with concern, a rise in the complaints we receive in several general health service areas, but particularly cosmetic treatment, counselling/psychotherapy and massage services. This has in turn led to an increase in our regulatory actions. These are areas where we are increasingly exercising functions to avoid a serious risk to the health, safety or welfare of the public, including carrying out investigations, issuing prohibition orders and warning statements. You can stay informed on our latest interim prohibition orders on our website. Major Sector-wide Inquiries — ART Our report on the Inquiry into Assisted Reproductive Treatment (ART) practices in Victoria was released earlier in the year. The report made recommendations regarding ART service provision in Victoria, including several recommendations relating specifically to communication and counselling services and complaint handling. Infertility affects people of all genders, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds and ART is a unique field in medicine that is strongly impacted by social and scientific changes. The industry has had to adapt to changing social mores, clinical advances and legal and ethical issues. In the coming months we will be working closely with ART and fertility clinics to work through some of the recommendations. The response of this sector has been very pleasing and there is a strong willingness to collaborate to improve areas we identified through our inquiry as needing change. We look forward to working with the ART and fertility sector. If you are an ART provider, and you would like to be involved, please contact media@hcc.vic.gov.au and we will direct your interest to the appropriate person.
For information on our training and education seminars, to sign up for an upcoming session or to organise a seminar for your organisation, visit our website Training Information We are pleased to advise that we are again offering our training and education seminars to health service providers. Our two online modules, the General Code of Conduct and Health Records Act are available at any time and we are keen to encourage you to undertake these when you can, or even take them again if you feel you need a refresher. You can access a certificate on completion which may be useful for your ongoing professional development file. Our very popular Successful Complaint Handling seminar will be offered again on 11 November and we strongly encourage you to sign up now as places are limited and filling fast. Likewise our education seminar on Understanding the Health Records Act for the Private sector will be held on 23 November. Please note that this is recommended for those in the Private sector only — we will offer another version of the seminar for the Public sector in the coming months. All our training and education seminars are free to attend and are currently delivered in an online environment as you'd expect. Our seminars cover a variety of topics and are updated regularly. You can also request to have a tailored training session for your own organisation should you wish. Contact us at hccevents@hcc.vic.gov.au if you'd like to discuss. We do suggest however that these sessions are kept to approximately 30 attendees, as this offers the best environment for questions and answers. Our Annual Report 2020–2021 is coming soon! In what has been an extraordinary year, we are proud to have helped in excess of 7000 Victorians with their complaints and enquiries. We have been hard at work this past year to support safe and ethical healthcare in Victoria and to make our latest Annual Report available to you. The report will be released shortly and will be available on our website, so do check back in a little while... You can access a full suite of printable resources for general health service providers on our website. You may like to download a poster or two for your office or waiting area. We also have some documents and fact sheets, as well as publications available in 26 community languages on our translations page. Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) the office of the Health Complaints Commissioner is operating on remote staffing arrangements but we remain open. We appreciate your patience in these uncertain times. Please also check our website hcc.vic.gov.au for regular updates. If you have concerns or a complaint about a health service provider, you can contact us at 1300 582 113 or online via our complaint form www.hcc.vic.gov.au/make-complaint You are receiving this email as you or your organisation handle health information and complaints. View our Privacy Statement at www.hcc.vic.gov.au/privacy |