Guide to Complaint Handling in Health Care Services

Foreword
The Health Services Review Council (‘HSRC’) is established under the Health Services
(Conciliation and Review) Act 1987. The HSRC is an advisory body, assisting the Minister and the
Health Services Commissioner with the health complaints system.
The HSRC recognises that consumer complaints are an inevitable part of any health system.
We believe that dealing promptly and effectively with complaints has considerable benefits for health
organisations, including better quality health care, reduced likelihood of litigation, and substantial
savings in the direct and indirect costs arising from adverse incidents, complaints and claims.
This Guide is designed to assist health service providers to develop and implement effective complaint
handling practices. An important aspect of this is supporting staff to deal with and learn from
complaints. For this reason the HSRC has also developed and piloted a training kit to enhance the
information contained in this Guide.
We are grateful to the Victorian Department of Human Services, who funded the project.
We also wish to thank the many health professionals who gave their time and expertise to participate
in focus groups, to provide information, to comment on drafts, to attend meetings and to participate
in pilot training programs.
We congratulate health service providers on their good work and their willingness to make changes
in order to improve the quality of the health care they provide. We commend this Guide to you as a
useful tool in this endeavour.
Health Services Review Council
2005