Health and disability services: your rights

What are my rights when it comes to healthcare or disability services?

The Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights sets out 10 rights that every consumer is entitled to, and every provider must follow.

1. Right to be treated with respect: A provider must treat you with respect and respect your privacy. You’ve also got a right to services that consider your individual needs, values and beliefs. For example, by including your whānau in decision making where culturally appropriate.
2. Right to freedom from discrimination, coercion, harassment, and exploitation: In short, you have a right to be treated fairly.
3. Right to dignity and independence. For instance, if you’re receiving care in an aged care facility, your provider should ensure your dignity and independence remain intact, even if you can’t do things like shower by yourself anymore.
4. Right to services of an appropriate standard. Any service should be provided with reasonable care and skill and in accordance with any professional, legal, or ethical standards.
5. Right to effective communication: This means your provider must communicate in a form, language and manner that you can understand. For example, if you need an interpreter, you’re entitled to one.
6. Right to be fully informed: You have the right to information about the treatment you receive, such as information about any conditions, treatment (risks, benefits, costs and options), test results and wait times for services. You can also request a written summary of all the information your provider gives you.
7. Right to make an informed choice and give informed consent: Informed choice and informed consent means your provider has given you all the information that is reasonable to have and you understand what you are agreeing to. For example, if you have a surgical consultation, your provider must educate you on any risks, benefits and options before you make a choice and give consent.
8. Right to support: You have the right to have at least one support person of your choice present, except where safety might be compromised or another consumer’s rights might be unreasonably infringed.
9. Rights in respect of teaching or research: Your rights also apply when you are taking part in teaching or research, like a clinical trial or when a medical student sits in on an appointment with you.
10. Right to complain: You have the right to complain about a provider.

What is the Health and Disability Commissioner?

The Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) is a specialist commission set up to protect and promote the rights of people using health and disability services.

The HDC is independent and aims to provide consumers with a voice by resolving complaints and holding service providers to account.

In the 2022/2023 financial year, the HDC received 3,353 complaints and resolved 3,048 of them. Two thirds of complaints were resolved within 3 months and up to 75% within 12 months.

The most common issues complained about included inadequate or inappropriate treatment and missed, incorrect or delayed diagnosis.

The most complained about organisations were Te Whatu Ora, medical centres and aged residential care facilities. The most complained about providers were general practitioners (GPs), midwives and nurses.

What can I do if my rights have been breached?

If you think your rights have been ignored or breached by a service provider, you can complain to the HDC. You can also make a complaint on behalf of someone else. Before making a complaint, you should speak directly to the provider to see if you can resolve the issue. This is likely to be the quickest and easiest way to address It’s also important to know what things the HDC can’t do.

The HDC can’t:

• get you compensation
• change your medical records
• have a person “struck off”
• provide a second opinion
• get you an appointment.

How do I make a complaint?

There are a range of ways to make a complaint to the HDC.

• Online complaint form: You can complain using the online form.
• Downloadable complaint form: Post, scan and email, or fax the downloadable form.

If you need help filling out the form, you can get help from the nationwide Health and Disability Advocacy Service. The service is independent and free to use. As well as helping to fill in the form, it can support you to resolve issues with health and disability services.

What is the complaints process?

After you submit your complaint, the HDC Complaints Assessment Team will perform an assessment and let you know what it decides. It might:

• ask the provider to sort things out with you using the HDC’s advocacy service
• ask the provider to respond to your complaint or apologise
• refer the complaint to someone who is better placed to handle it, like the Privacy Commissioner
• close the complaint
• give the provider recommendations to action to prevent what happened to you from happening again
• carry out a formal investigation, though the HDC says this only happens in a small number of cases.