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Making a complaint or notification
Any person may make a complaint or notification about a nurse or midwife if there are concerns about the nurse or midwife's character, practice or fitness for practice.
A complaint may be lodged with either the Nurses and Midwives Board or with the Health Care Complaints Commission. Both organisations share information and consult with each other when a complaint is received. A complaint lodged with the Board must be in writing and must contain particulars of the allegations on which it is founded.
As well as complaints about professional conduct and professional performance, the Board may be notified of health problems that may be affecting the practice of nurses or midwives.
The Nurses and Midwives Board is generally able to take action only about persons who are registered or enrolled with the Board and who can be identified. The Health Care Complaints Commission may be able to take action in regard to health care providers who are not nurses or midwives.
The Nurses and Midwives Board will also receive information about any person who is not actually registered, enrolled or authorised, but holds herself or himself out to the public or employers as being a registered nurse, nurse practitioner, registered midwife, midwife practitioner, enrolled nurse or enrolled nurse (mothercraft).
There is, in our society, a prevailing view that a person is generally entitled to know who is making assertions that may have adverse consequences. When advised of a concern about which the Board proposes to take some action, the nurse or midwife may be informed of the identity of the person or organisation which lodged the notification. Even if the information is not provided in the first instance, it would usually become known if the matter leads to any formal process such as a disciplinary hearing, performance review panel or impairment panel.
If you consider that a complaint or notification is warranted but you feel vulnerable if identified as the complainant, you may wish to obtain further advice from a community or professional organisation of which you are a member or to which you have access, or from the Health Care Complaints Commission. In some instances, complaints may be lodged by the management of employing organisations rather than by individual colleagues of the nurse or midwife who is the subject of concern.
Search the Registers and Roll
The Registrar
Nurses and Midwives Board
PO Box K599
Haymarket NSW 1238
Telephone: (02) 9219 0222
or 1800 241 220 (rural areas) |
Health Care Complaints Commission
Locked Mail Bag 18
Strawberry Hills NSW 2012
Telephone: (02) 9219 7444
Toll Free in NSW 1800 043 159
TTY service for the hearing impaired: (02) 9219 7555 | |
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