The Health Professional Councils Authority (HPCA) supports health professional councils in NSW. Together we protect the public by regulating health practitioners in NSW.

We work with the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC), in a partnership called co-regulation to manage complaints about health practitioners and students  in NSW. The HCCC has a wider role in complaints management and consults with councils about which agency should deal with each complaint.

Councils focus on safe professional practice, maintaining public safety and minimising risk. Councils act to prevent unsafe practice and have legal powers to enable them to do so.

Councils also make sure that students who are undertaking an approved program of study in a registered health profession are fit to have contact with the public in NSW.

The role of councils is not to punish or discipline practitioners. When councils take action, the protection of the health and safety of the public is their primary consideration.

Councils also ensure that practitioners and students comply with any conditions on their registration that restrict their practice.

• You can check if your practitioner is registered on the national register of practitioners.
• You can make a complaint about a health practitioner practising in NSW.

As we are focused on protecting the health and safety of the NSW public, we do not deal with complaints about:

• registered practitioners not practising in NSW. To make a complaint about a practitioner outside of NSW contact the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
• unregistered practitioners. If you are concerned about a NSW health practitioner whose name is not on the national register of practitioners, contact the Health Care Complaints Commission.
• organisations that provide health services like a hospital or clinic. If you want to do this contact the Health Care Complaints Commission  or the health service you are concerned about.
• consumer or customer service about issues such as requests for refunds or queries regarding billing. If you want to complain about these issues go to NSW Fair Trading.