1. Introduction
    2. MyAutonomy’s purpose is to enable you to live the life you want by partnering with you to bring your NDIS plan to life. MyAutonomy is committed to providing a high quality and professional service that meets your needs. As an organisation we genuinely welcome and encourage feedback, ideas and suggestions. All feedback is valued and helps us to develop a better service to deliver positive outcomes for achieving your goals.
  2. Policy Statement
    3. You can expect that MyAutonomy will:
    • actively encourage you (our customers), your family and carers to provide feedback or to raise concerns about any aspect of the service MyAutonomy provides that is not meeting your expectation of quality and professionalism;
    • respect that you, your family and carers will decide how, when and where you wish to make a complaint and you can choose a key contact person at MyAutonomy to work through the process with;
    • provide you with ongoing information about MyAutonomy feedback and complaints policy and processes that are accessible, easily understood and culturally relevant;
    • resolve your complaint in a confidential, fair, and timely manner with personal views respected;
    • throughout the complaint handling process MyAutonomy will support your participation, identify your desired goal, and keep you and their supporters informed of all decisions and the reasons for those decisions;
    • ensure that there are no negative consequences or disadvantage to you or your supporters as a result of the complaint or expressed view; and
    • use MyAutonomy feedback and complaints review process to inform and direct continuous improvement across the organisation.
  3. Scope
    4. The National Disability Services Acts and Standards relate to the provision of disability services for people with a disability and recognise the role of your family, friends, carers and advocates. This Policy relates to all activities of MyAutonomy. Each area of MyAutonomy is required to take responsibility for ensuring full understanding of the commitments outlined in this policy and implement relevant systems, procedures, workflows and other strategies that will direct the development of MyAutonomy culture of Customer Service. This policy will also apply in full to all volunteers, contractors, agents, visitors, consultants, suppliers and customers whilst they are on MyAutonomy premises or providing any service to a MyAutonomy customer, their family or carers.
  4. Application
    5. All relevant MyAutonomy employees (ongoing, temporary, casual, contractors and volunteers) are required to respond to complaints. The response must be in accordance with the principles outlined in this Policy. For the purposes of this Policy the following are excluded from the scope of this Policy and they have another specific management process and supporting Policy that are available through MyAutonomy, such as:
    • staff grievances;
    • staff concerns about a client’s welfare;
    • appeals against a decision made about eligibility to receive services, complaints from service providers regarding its contractual arrangements with MyAutonomy or complaints about other service providers;
    • feedback and/or criticism for which a response is not expected;
    • incident related matters;
    • fraud and corruption;
    • abuse and negligence; and
    • protected disclosures and requests for service or information.
  5. Purpose The purpose of this policy is:
    • to ensure that MyAutonomy regularly and actively seeks your feedback about the service you receive, creating a partnership where you, your family and carers feel safe and supported to complain and express a view point, how and when you want with the assistance you choose;
    • to ensure that you, your family and your carers are aware of your rights, responsibilities and MyAutonomy responsibilities; and
    • to meet or exceed the National Disability Services Acts and Standards and comply with all other relevant legislation.
  6. Feedback and Complaints Procedure

    7. 6.1 Complaint Definition As ISO 10002 – 2006 defines a complaint as;

    ‘An expression of dissatisfaction made to an organisation, related to its products, or the complaints handling process itself, where a response is explicitly or implicitly expected’. In line with the above, MyAutonomy will consider any express dissatisfaction about our services, where a response is explicitly or implicitly expected, as a complaint. MyAutonomy takes complaints about our services very seriously. This policy is designed to ensure MyAutonomy provides the highest levels of customer service in relation to our complaints handling processes.

    6.2 Complaint Types

    Complaints can be in relation to:
    • service delivery;
    • service Access;
    • privacy;
    • policy; or
    • staff Issues (performance, behaviour, attitude).

    6.3 Lodging a Complaint

    Anyone can make a complaint to MyAutonomy regarding our service, you do not have to be receiving services and you may make a complaint on behalf of someone else. Complaints can be made in several ways; in person, over the phone, and via letter or email. MyAutonomy will support you to make a complaint, for example if required we can arrange an interpreter for you using TIS National Translating services (this includes AUSLAN). Complaints can be lodged:
    • Via Email: [email protected]
    • Via Mail: MyAutonomy Suite 6, Level 12 350 Collins St VIC 3000
    • Via Phone: 1300 60 33 89
    For Telephone Interpreting Service:
    • Via Phone: 131 450*
    *When using this service remember to have your NDIS number ready.

    6.4 Receiving Complaints

    Employees at all levels will record and deal with complaints including understanding of what action can be taken to resolve the complaint. Complaints that cannot be resolved at the first point of contact (i.e. over the phone) require an acknowledgement either verbally or in writing (i.e. by email) that you will receive a response within two (2) business days advising of the requirement of ongoing investigation. When complaints are received verbally, we will:
    • provide you with an explanation of the events that occurred, if known at the time;
    • comprehensively record the conversation and concerns, along with all necessary details (names, date issue first arose, etc) into the customer relations management system – including where the complaint is resolved;
    • identify the issues for resolution, including the key concerns raised by you;
    • clarify with you directly, if any issue is unclear;
    • know when to escalate the complaint to a Team Leader or Manager;
    • advise of the complaints handing process, and
    • commence handling the complaint if appropriate.
    When complaints are received in writing, we will;
    • acknowledge receipt of the complaint by contacting you within 1 business day of receipt; and
    • follow the procedural points above.
    In all cases MyAutonomy can accept anonymous complaints and we will investigate these as far as possible.

    6.5 Information Collection

    The MyAutonomy representative will collect relevant information including:
    • name of person making the complaint (on behalf of yourself or someone else);
    • preferred method of return contact;
    • details of the complaint; and
    • preference of outcome.

    6.6 Recording Complaints

    MyAutonomy staff are responsible for entering complaints information in our customer relations management system as complaints are received, including complaints received and immediately resolved.

    6.7 Investigating the Complaint

    All complaints require, to a greater or lesser degree, an investigation to determine what has happened and what course of action is needed in response. The person managing the complaint will consider:
    • what information is required and where to source it; how it should be collected (system’s review, phone call, document review etc);
    • what you would like to resolve the issue, in what time frame, and if we can reasonably meet this expectation; and
    • how a response should be communicated to the you (verbally, email, letter etc).

    6.8 Responding to Complaints

    Once the information has been analysed, we should be able to action a response. Actions taken to resolve a complaint must be based on the evidence, address the issues raised by you and be informed by the principles of fairness, respect and transparency. If there is any doubt over the appropriate action regarding a complaint, we will escalate the complaint and relevant information to a line manager for consideration of options. Options for appropriate action may include, but are not limited to:
    • explaining the process employed by MyAutonomy which led to the complaint;
    • training / Education of MyAutonomy employee(s);
    • provision of relevant information to you;
    • further complaint investigation;
    • offering you an apology; or
    • ongoing monitoring of the issue.
    MyAutonomy employees will ensure that the outcome of the complaint investigation is clearly communicated to you. Final responses may be in the form of a letter, an email or telephone. The final response will:
    • address each of the points you raised with a full explanation, or if not possible, provide you with the reasons why a detailed response is not available and advise you that a further response will be provided within two (2) business days;
    • give specific details about the investigation – i.e. sources of information, what has been discovered to date etc;
    • ensure that you have been provided with the contact details of the staff member who is responsible for handling your complaint; and
    • include details of further action available to you, if appropriate.
    All complaints are recorded on the MyAutonomy internal feedback and complaints register and are examined for continuous improvement purposes.
  7. External Disputes Resolution
    8. Who can make a complaint?

    Anyone can make a complaint to the NDIS Commission about supports and services provided by an NDIS provider. This includes people with disability, their families, friends, carers, advocates or guardians, workers or volunteers of an NDIS provider or any other person who wishes to make a complaint.

    How can a complaint be made?

    A complaint can be made to the NDIS Commission by:

    • phoning 1800 035 544 (free call from landlines) or TTY 133 677 (interpreters can be arranged)
    • using the National Relay Service and asking for 1800 035 544
    • completing a complaint contact form to let the NDIS Commission know how best to contact you.
    If a complaint remains unresolved and requires further follow up, or if you are not satisfied with the final resolution offered by us in attempting to resolve a dispute, we can assist with information regarding a number options for you to lodge a complaint with an external agency for follow up. These include: National Abuse and Neglect Hotline
    • National Disability Abuse and Neglect Hotline o www.disabilityhotline.org o 1800 880 052 New South Wales
    • Health Care Complaints Commission o www.hccc.nsw.gov.au o 1800 043 159
    • NSW Ombudsman o www.ombo.nsw.gov.au o (02) 9206 1000

    Australian Capital Territory

    • ACT Disability & Community Services Commissioner
      • hrc.act.gov.au/disability
      • (02) 6205 2222
    • ACT Human Rights Commission o hrc.act.gov.au o (02) 6205 2222

    Queensland

    • Central Complaints and Review Unit Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services
    • Office of the Health Ombudsman www.oho.qld.gov.au 133 646

South Australia

  • Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner
    • www.hcscc.sa.gov.au
    • 1800 232 007

Tasmania

  • Health Complaints Commissioner Tasmania
    • www.healthcomplaints.tas.gov.au
    • 1800 001 170

Victoria

  • Health Complaints Commissioner
    • www.hcc.vic.gov.au
    • 1300 582 113 9.

Policy Review

This Feedback and Complaints Policy will be reviewed every 12 months. Each complaint received will be reviewed in its entirety as part of MyAutonomy commitment to continuously improve on service deliverables.