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A complaint to AHPRA can have a significant impact on your career, but so many complaints are preventable.

Drawing on over a decade as a former AHPRA investigator and solicitor defending health practitioners, David Gardner has developed this detailed course to help health practitioners understand where complaints begin, how to reduce professional risk, and confidently navigate the complaints process if one ever arises.

The course covers:

Avoiding Complaints and Minimising Risk

Learn how the most common complaints arise, spot the risks and weaknesses in your everyday practice, understand your professional obligations, and implement practical strategies to reduce the likelihood of receiving a complaint.

Damage Control and Complaint Management

If a complaint does occur, you'll understand what you’ll be facing through the entire process, how to respond professionally, and the proactive steps that can help you protect your career and get the best possible outcome.  

Learning Outcomes

1. Evaluate the nature of risk in clinical practice, articulating why risk is inherent and continuous, and justify a strategy of risk minimisation rather than elimination
2. Analyse the causes of patient complaints, including the clinical, communication, and relational factors that lead patients to complain
3. Interpret your regulatory and professional obligations, including relevant codes of conduct, and explain how these obligations extend to your conduct in both professional and personal life
4. Identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities within your own practice and develop a forward-looking plan to mitigate risk across policies and procedures, communication, and record-keeping
5. Apply recognised standards, including the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) Standards, to critically review and improve practice policies and procedures
6. Develop a complaints management policy appropriate to your practice setting, and plan for the effective implementation of associated changes
7. Respond to a complaint made directly to you or your employer in a manner that acknowledges the patient's concerns and works toward resolution
8. Apply effective communication techniques when managing a complaint, including the appropriate use of explanation and apology
9. Determine when and how a complaint should be escalated, referred, or notified, and identify the point at which external advice (for example, from an indemnity insurer or lawyer) should be sought
10. Explain the regulatory complaints process, including the roles of the relevant bodies and your obligations once a complaint reaches the regulator
11. Prepare an appropriate response to a regulator, and identify the supporting documentation and records required to substantiate that response
12. Evaluate the outcomes of a regulatory complaint and integrate any lessons learned into improved practice, policies, and procedures.

Details

Cost: Please refer to Provider's website

This course is entirely self-paced and available online at any time. It can be completed in multiple sessions over several months if that is convenient. Your progress will be saved and you’ll continue where you left off when you log back in. The learning materials also remain available for you to revisit for 12 months after purchase, even if you’ve completed the course on the first day.

Disclaimer: Please note, once you click 'Register now' you will be leaving the AMA’s CPD Home website and entering a third-party education provider’s website. If you choose to register for this learning, you will need to provide some of your personal information directly to the third-party education provider. If you have any queries about how third-party education providers use, disclose or store your personal information you should consult their privacy policy.

Upon completion, your CPD activity record may take up to 4 weeks to be reflected on your CPD Home Dashboard.