Feedback and Complaints

Your feedback is very important and we appreciate you taking the time to give it to us. We welcome your comments and suggestions and encourage you to actively support our ‘Summit Star Program’ as your way of recognising staff who have exceeded your expectations.

Complaints are also a very important source of feedback and we welcome any constructive criticism or details of something which you are not satisfied with. Our staff and managers will work hard with you to investigate your concerns and work to resolve them effectively. Our goal is to improve our systems to make sure that we meet your needs-all day every day.

Each of our Centres have feedback forms (these can also be used for complaints) displayed near reception areas - one is also available at the back of this handbook which you can tear out.

Your options for providing feedback are varied and we welcome you to use any of them:

1. Speak to any member of staff. They will happily take your verbal
     feedback and pass it on to the Operations Manager/Manager -
     Care & Lifestyle who will make sure it is followed up.
2. Complete the feedback form and hand it to the Administration
     Assistant, the Manager - Care & Lifestyle or Operations Manager

     where it will be logged as an ‘improvement log’ and followed up.
3. Table your comments through the centre resident/relative
     meeting. The Lifestyle & Leisure Officer will let you know the date
     of your next meeting.
4. Ask for an appointment with the Manager - Care & Lifestyle or

    Operations Manager who will be happy to understand your

    feedback if you would like to do this verbally.
5. Write a letter and give to the centre for the Operations Manager
     to acknowledge and they will follow it up.
6. Provide feedback when we ask you to complete a survey /
     questionnaire. These happen periodically through-out your stay
     and are a great way in which you can tell us more about our
     services and what we can do to improve them.
     to acknowledge and they will follow it up.

Recognising Staff- Summit Star Program

Each of our centres display a Summit Star nomination form near reception. This can be your way of identifying a 'star' staff member. Simply complete the nomination form and hand it to the Operations Manager or post it direct to the Chief Executive Officer. Staff at the centres office will happily do this for you if you need assistance. The nomination will be tabled to the management team meeting. Staff who meet the criteria for an award are provided a gift voucher, a certificate and a Summit Star badge. They also go into the end of year award for a major prize. By recognising staff for their excellent work you help them feel more appreciated and recognised for the wonderful work they do all day, every day.

Making a Complaint

We believe that all complaints are important and we work hard for our complaints systems to be responsive and effective. All complaints are taken seriously and undergo a formal record keeping system so we can track your concerns/complaint and make sure we work through our systems to ensure they are handled responsively and effectively.

Our goal is to solve the problem and work to prevent a re-occurrence of something you are not happy with.

We have a number of ways in which you or your representative/family member can make a complaint:

1. Speak to any member of staff, they will happily take your verbal
    feedback and pass it on to the Operations Manager/Manager -      Care & Lifestyle who will make sure it is followed up.
2. Complete the feedback form and hand it to the Administration
     Assistant, the Manager - Care & Lifestyle or Operations Manager      where it will be logged as an 'improvement log' and followed up.
3. Ask for an appointment with the Manager - Care & Lifestyle or      Operations Manager who will be happy to understand your      complaint, if you
     would like to do this verbally.
4. Write a letter and give to the centre for the Operations Manager to
     acknowledge and they will follow it up.
5. Contact the Group Manager - Care & Lifestyle by email
     complaints@summitcare.com.au
6. Contact the Chief Executive Officer


7. Contact the Aged Care Investigation Scheme, which is an external
     complaints scheme managed by the Department of Health &
     Ageing


Mail: GPO Box 9848-Sydney NSW 2001