All of the services offered by our practices are covered by the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights.
We prefer to receive complaints in writing directly to the practice itself. This is because in many cases health complaints are complex and are covered by a number of legislative requirements that require investigation.
If you would prefer not to make the complaint to us directly, you can also contact the supporting organisations below which are available to you.
If you wish to make a complaint verbally then you can do so at one of our practices and we will do our best to assist. If the complaint is complex, then we may request the complaint in writing and you are welcome to contact one of the organisations below for support with this.
Simply click on the image to open the relevant page.
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When we recieve a complaint the first thing we do is acknowledge that we have received your complaint as soon as possible. This is so that you know that the complaint has been received and is being reviewed. Under our legislative requirements this must happen within 5 working days of the receiving the complaint, however we will always try to acknowledge sooner than that.
If we can quickly identify as resolution to the complaint then we will propose this as a solution as soon as we can, generally at the time we acknowledge the complaint.
If further information is required then we will let you know that we are investigating the complaint further. Under our legislative requirements this investigation can take up to 10 working days, and if more time is required then we will advise you of this and explain why we need more time.
If the complaint takes a significant amount of time then we will update you on a monthly basis about the complaint. This may be different if a complaint involves Advocacy New Zealand or the Health and Disability Commissioner.
Once we have completed our investigation we will communicate with you regarding the outcome of our investigation, the actions we propose to take.
If you don't accept that our investigations, conclusions, or proposed actions are appropriate, you can appeal this outcome. To do so, please respond to the person who has communicated the outcome to you and advise that you would like to appeal the outcome, what parts of the outcome you would like to appeal, and what your proposed alternative outcome is.
If this occurs, the complaint will be refereed to someone not involved in the previous investigation. This person will undertake their own review of the investigation, taking into account your additional information, and then report to our complaints officer their view on the appropriateness of the original outcome. We will then communicate to you the new proposed outcome, which may be the same or different to the original outcome. We will only accept one appeal per complaint.
If you still do not like the outcome after the appeal, or you do not wish to appeal the outcome to us, you are able to contact any of the breach).
If you don't agree with the outcome of a complaints process managed by one of the supporting organisations, please raise your concerns firstly with your contact at that organisation. They have their own processes to follow in that situation.
