Your rights
Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights
Everyone has the right to receive the best possible care. The Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights is a guide to how we should treat your child during their care.
It aims to help patients, their families, carers and other support people get the most out of their health care.
- access healthcare services and treatment that meets your needs
- receive safe and high quality health care that meets national standards
- be treated as an individual, and with dignity and respect
- ask questions and be involved in open and honest communication with your healthcare provider
- understand what’s happening with your care and treatment
- have your personal privacy respected
- give feedback or make a complaint about your health care without it affecting the way that you’re treated.
Understanding your rights
We know it can be hard to understand some information. You can find an easy English version of the Australian Chart of Healthcare Rights on the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care website.
This document has pictures and words to help people understand what the information is about.
Understanding your rights in other languages and formats
The Australian Commission also has a range of other resources to help people understand and use the charter, including:
- translated versions of the charter into 19 different languages
- a culturally appropriate and tailored version of the charter for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- a charter for people with cogitative impairment
- the charter in animation
- Auslan video.
Mental health services - independent patient rights advisor
Our advisors make sure your child's rights are protected if they're involved with mental health services.
You can contact us directly by:
- phone: 07 3069 7104
- mobile: 0476 830 919
- email: CHQ_IPRA@health.qld.gov.au
Read more about the support we offer on the Queensland Health website.
Understanding your child’s care
Most families have questions about their child’s care. We often give you a lot of information at once about your child’s condition or surgery that includes medical terms. We know this can be confusing and hard to understand. You can ask us to explain and write down any medical terms or draw a diagram.
You can also have another person with you in hospital or bring them to appointments. They’ll often remember things that you forget.
Before you go home
Ask us for:
- information about how to care for your child at home, including what to do if you’re worried about your child
- a clear follow up plan, including who any follow up appointments are with such as your GP or a specialist outpatient appointment at the hospital.
We can also arrange a free interpreter if you or your child has trouble hearing or you don't speak English. They can go with you to appointments or help you over the phone or by video call.
Consent
We need your permission or consent before we can examine or treat your child.
This may include agreeing to a simple procedure such as taking their blood pressure. If your child needs surgery, an anaesthetic or another serious procedure, we’ll ask you to sign a consent form.
Make sure you understand the treatment or procedure before you sign a consent form. This includes understanding the benefits and risks, and whether there’s another treatment your child could have instead.
If you change your mind, you can withdraw your consent, even if you’ve signed the form.
You child may be able to provide their own consent for procedures depending on their age and understanding. Ask your child’s treating team for more information.
Privacy
Your child’s personal information is protected under the Health Records Act 2001 (HRA) and other legislation. Read about how we manage and protect your child’s health records on the Queensland Health website.
You must also respect the privacy of other people in hospital. This includes not taking photos or videos of our staff or other children or their families without their permission.
Read more about how to access your child’s health record.
Raise concerns about a patient's health (Ryan's Rule)
Ryan's Rule is a 3 step process used to raise concerns if a patient’s health condition is getting worse or not improving as well as expected.
You can’t use Ryan’s Rule to make a complaint or provide feedback.
You know your child better than anyone. Please tell us if you think your child’s condition is getting worse, or not improving as well as expected while they’re in hospital.
Your first step should always be to talk to your child’s nurse or doctor.
If you don’t think the matter has been resolved, talk to the nurse in charge or call 13 Health (13 43 25 84) and request a Ryan’s Rule clinical review.
A Ryan’s Rule call will alert a Medical Emergency Team to visit your child’s bedside and assess the situation.
Read more about the Ryan's Rule process on the Clinical Excellence Queensland website.
Your responsibilities
You can help us give your child the best possible care by:
- giving us accurate and truthful information about you and your child’s health
- going to scheduled appointments or telling us if you can’t
- telling us if you don’t understand anything about their health care
- following your child’s treatment plan
- making sure our staff know if you need to leave your child unattended.
You also have a responsibility to treat our staff and other patients with dignity, courtesy and respect.
We understand how difficult and overwhelming it can be when your child’s in hospital, but we won’t tolerate our staff being abused.
If you need more support our social workers and welfare team can help you.
Give feedback
Your feedback is important to us. It helps us identify areas for improvement and acknowledge things we’ve done well.
We review all feedback and:
- share compliments with our staff
- send suggestions to our forums for review, discussion and consideration
- investigate complaints and action decisions made through the investigation.
You can give us feedback by talking to us, writing to us or using our online form.
Children's Health Queensland is also undertaking a pilot project asking patients and their parents/carers to provide feedback on a Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) survey CHQ are proposing to use to collect information about their CHQ health care experience. For more information read our Patient Information Sheet.