Complaints by Young People
The Health and Disability Services Complaints Office (HaDSCO) is an independent Statutory Authority offering an impartial resolution service for complaints relating to health, disability and mental health services in Western Australia and the Indian Ocean Territories.
Are you a young person who is taking responsibility for their health and well-being for the first time?
Visiting health services like doctors, specialists, dentists, physiotherapists and hospitals by yourself can be challenging. You should be treated with respect and consideration and receive a high standard of care at all times. All treatments and fees charged to you should be clearly explained. If you feel like that didn’t happen, it is your right to complain.
You should complain to the service provider first. If they don’t work with you to fix the problem, if you’re not happy with the outcome or if you have a reason why you can’t or don’t want to complain directly to them, you can call us at HaDSCO.
We deal with complaints about health, disability and mental health services in Western Australia and the Indian Ocean Territories. Our help is free to everyone.
We will listen to you. We will do what we can to help fix the problem. If we can’t help, we will help you find someone who can.
Being responsible for your own health and well-being does not mean you have to manage it alone. It’s OK to speak up if something isn’t right. For help and advice on issues you have experienced with health, disability and mental health service providers, call HaDSCO.
If you are ready to raise a complaint with HaDSCO, please go to our online Complaint form or contact us.
Your complaint must be in writing. It is best to use our complaint form as it will make sure that you give us all the information that we need to help you.
You can ask someone to send us a complaint on your behalf. This person will be your representative and they will help us to deal with your complaint and the service provider. You must give that person your permission to be your representative. All the information you need to do this is on our complaint form.
You must give us permission to send information about your complaint to, and discuss the details with, the service provider. You can give us this permission on the complaint form.
We usually cannot help with a complaint about something that happened more than two years ago. Sometimes we can still help and you should contact us for more information. We cannot help with complaints that have already been determined by a court, registration board or tribunal. We will help you to find someone else who can help.
What happens next
We will contact the person and/or service provider who you have made a complaint about. We will work with them to figure out what went wrong and come up with a solution based on all the information we have from both you and the service provider. We may need to contact you for more information.
We will make suggestions to fix the problem and you and the person and/or service provider will have to decide if it’s acceptable.
Need more information?
Read our information sheet and poster: