Complaints, insight and remediation3 hours
Responding to a Complaint
From Right 10 to the Tribunal: what happens after an HDC complaint or council notification, and how to write an honest, well-evidenced response.
NZ$139DetailsAdd to cart
Complaints, insight and remediation
How to Avoid a Complaint: Lessons from HDC Complaint Themes
Using Health and Disability Commissioner complaint data to spot the triggers, fix the habits and resolve concerns early in Aotearoa New Zealand
- 3hours (estimated)
- 10sections
- 20final questions
- 80%pass mark
- PDFcertificate
- Online and self-paced, on any device
- Reflective account template
- Knowledge checks in every section
- Instant certificate of completion
What you will learn
- Summarise what recent Health and Disability Commissioner annual reports show about the volume, main issues and most complained-about providers and occupations in New Zealand.
- Explain why complaints usually combine a clinical or service event with an unmet expectation or a poor first response, and use that model to target prevention.
- Apply safety-netting, results follow-up and repeat-presentation review to reduce complaints about missed, delayed or incorrect diagnosis.
- Reduce complaints about assessment, treatment, delay and unexpected outcomes by examining properly, setting realistic expectations and keeping waiting consumers informed.
- Recognise the behaviours behind complaints about disrespectful manner and failed communication, and replace them with habits consistent with Rights 1, 5 and 6 of the Code of Rights.
- Identify the complaint patterns most often seen in general practice, hospital care, nursing, midwifery, dentistry, pharmacy and allied health practice, and the matching preventive controls.
- Use cultural safety, Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations, whānau engagement and accessible communication to prevent complaints from Māori, Pacific and disabled consumers.
- Detect early signs of dissatisfaction and resolve concerns at the point of care in a way that meets Right 10 and supports early resolution.
- Build practice systems (results tracking, recalls, cost estimates, complaint and feedback registers) that reduce recurring complaint triggers.
- Write a personal complaint-prevention plan linked to your responsible authority's standards and recertification requirements.
Who this course is for
Doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, dental and oral health practitioners, paramedics and allied health practitioners registered under the HPCA Act 2003, plus practice owners, managers, team leaders and clinical educators.
Doctors (MCNZ) Nurses (Nursing Council) Midwives (Midwifery Council) Dental professions (Dental Council) Pharmacists (Pharmacy Council) Other HPCA Act professions
After a concern
Structured learning and a written reflection to show insight after a complaint, an investigation or a responsible authority inquiry.
Routine CPD
Focused learning on a core standard of practice, with a certificate and reflection for your portfolio.
About this course
This course is about prevention. It uses the Health and Disability Commissioner's own published complaint figures and analyses to show what New Zealand consumers actually complain about: inadequate treatment, missed or delayed diagnosis, delay, poor assessment, failures of communication and disrespectful manner. It then works through the clinical, communication and system habits that sit behind each theme, the patterns seen in general practice, hospital medicine, nursing, midwifery, dentistry, pharmacy and allied health, and the practical steps that stop dissatisfaction turning into a formal complaint.
It is written for doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, dental and oral health practitioners, paramedics, psychologists, physiotherapists and other practitioners registered under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, and for practice owners, team leaders and educators who want to reduce complaints across a service. It does not cover how to respond once a formal complaint has been made; that is the subject of the separate course Responding to a Complaint.
The Health and Disability Commissioner receives several thousand complaints a year, and most of them describe problems that were predictable and preventable: a result nobody followed up, a person who was not examined, a cost that was never explained, a whānau that was not listened to. Every one of those is also a question of the Code of Rights and of your responsible authority's standards. Learning from the complaints others have received is one of the cheapest and most effective forms of patient safety and professional self-protection available to a New Zealand practitioner.
Course details
- Learning time
- Approximately 3 hours (estimated learning time including knowledge checks, reflection and assessment)
- Standards covered
- Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights (Rights 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10; clause 3); Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994; HDC annual reports 2023/24 and 2024/25 and HDC complaint analyses; HPCA Act 2003; MCNZ Good medical practice and statements on Cultural safety and Unprofessional behaviour; Nursing Council Code of Conduct; Midwifery Council Code of Conduct; Pharmacy Council Code of Ethics 2018; Dental Council Standards Framework; HDC Guidance on open disclosure policies
- Format
- Self-paced, gated lessons with knowledge checks, case studies and reflection
- Assessment
- 20 scenario-based questions, 80% to pass (16 of 20)
- Outcome
- Certificate of completion and a written reflection for your CPD record
- Alignment
- Mapped to the Code of Rights and to the communication, care, cultural safety and complaints standards of the Medical, Nursing, Midwifery, Pharmacy and Dental Councils and other responsible authorities
Course curriculum
10 sections · 30 lessons · 3 hours (estimated) · 20-question final assessment
-
1What New Zealand complaint data tells us4 lessons
- Prevention starts with treating complaints as signals
- What HDC's annual reports show
- Who is complained about, and the pattern of repeat complaints
- The anatomy of a complaint
-
2Clinical triggers: diagnosis, assessment, treatment and delay4 lessons
- Missed, delayed and incorrect diagnosis
- Examination and assessment
- Treatment, delay and unexpected outcomes
- Medication-related complaints
-
3Communication, manner and information4 lessons
- Disrespectful manner: how small behaviours become complaints
- Failure to communicate effectively
- Costs, expectations and information before care
- Communication between providers
-
4Complaint patterns by profession4 lessons
- Doctors: general practice, hospital and specialist care
- Nurses and midwives
- Dentists and oral health practitioners
- Pharmacists and allied health practitioners
-
5Equity, culture, disability and high-risk settings3 lessons
- Māori and Pacific consumers: cultural safety as prevention
- Disabled people and accessible care
- High-risk settings: aged care, prisons, mental health and remote care
-
6Early resolution: stopping a concern becoming a complaint4 lessons
- Recognising early warning signs of dissatisfaction
- The on-the-spot response
- Advocacy and early resolution pathways
- Open disclosure as prevention
-
7Building a complaint-resistant practice4 lessons
- Systems that prevent recurring triggers
- Learning from complaints, compliments and feedback
- Workload, wellbeing and behaviour under pressure
- Your personal complaint-prevention plan
-
8Conclusion and key points1 lesson
- Conclusion and key points
-
9References and further reading1 lesson
- References and further reading
-
10Your reflective account1 lesson
- Your reflective account
Assessment and certificate
Final assessment
20scenario-based questions
- Pass mark 80%: 16 correct out of 20
- Knowledge checks in each section as you go
- Tests whether you can apply the standards, not recall a page
- Not passed yet? Review the sections and retake it
Certificate of completion
A certificate of completion for your learning portfolio.
- Your name, the course title and the estimated learning time (record the time you actually spend)
- Completion date and a unique certificate ID that can be verified
- Ready to download as a PDF as soon as you complete the course
Fitness To Practice
Certificate of Completion
This certifies that
Your Name
has successfully completed
How to Avoid a Complaint: Lessons from HDC Complaint Themes
3hours (estimated)
Continuing professional development record — New Zealand
Your reflective account
The course includes a structured reflective account template: guided prompts to record what you learned, how you will apply it and how the change will show in your practice. It gives you written evidence of insight after a concern, and a ready record for your CPD portfolio.
Write it in your own words and leave out anything that could identify a patient, a colleague or a case. If you have an open complaint or case, talk to your adviser before reflecting on it in writing.
Questions about this course
Which complaint themes does the avoiding complaints course draw on?
It begins with what the Health and Disability Commissioner itself publishes about complaint themes, such as care judged inadequate, diagnoses missed or made late, delays, weak assessment, poor communication and a disrespectful manner. Those themes are then traced across GP clinics, hospital wards, maternity, dental surgeries, pharmacies and allied health practices, and each is paired with practical controls that stop it recurring.
Can good communication really prevent a complaint to HDC?
Often, yes. Most complaints combine a clinical or service event with an unmet expectation or a poor first response. The course turns Rights 1, 5 and 6 of the Code of Rights into habits such as explaining delays, setting realistic expectations and safety-netting, and shows how to resolve a concern at the point of care in a way that meets Right 10. No course can guarantee a complaint will never be made.
How is prevention different from the course on responding to an HDC complaint?
Think of this one as upstream work, done before any complaint exists. The separate HDC complaint response course picks up once a letter has landed, with the timeframes, the chronology and the written reply. Plenty of practitioners do prevention first and save the response course until they need it; others take both after a concern has been raised.
What practice systems does the complaint prevention course help me set up?
Results tracking and follow-up, recall systems, written cost estimates, and complaint and feedback registers that catch recurring triggers early. You finish with a personal complaint-prevention plan linked to your responsible authority's standards, which can sit in your recertification record alongside the structured reflective account where it fits your PDP.
How this course was built
Official sources only
Every legal and regulatory point comes from primary sources: the HPCA Act 2003, the responsible authorities' standards and the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights. Anything we cannot confirm is left out.
Original, edition by edition
Lessons, scenarios and assessment questions are written by us for each edition separately, then checked for accuracy, teaching quality and fair assessment before publication.
Reviewed when rules change
When a code, standard or law changes, the affected courses are reviewed and updated. Reported errors in legal or regulatory facts are corrected first.
Related courses
All coursesConsent, privacy and communication3 hours
Effective Communication with Patients and Whānau
Everyday consultation skills, culturally safe kōrero with whānau, interpreters, communication access, difficult conversations and digital communication.
NZ$139DetailsAdd to cart
Patient safety and medicines3 hours
Clinical Risk Management
Identify, assess and control clinical risk under the Code of Rights, Ngā Paerewa, the HQSC adverse events policy and New Zealand workplace health and safety law.
NZ$139DetailsAdd to cart
NZ$1393 hours (estimated) · 20 questions
Enrol now