Introducing the Commissioner
Rae Lamb was appointed as the Aged Care Commissioner, for a three year term, commencing 5 January 2011.
Ms Lamb has extensive experience with complaint handling and resolution, investigations, and review in the health and aged care regulatory environment, as well as public speaking and presenting. She was the Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner in New Zealand for five and a half years.
As the Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Ms Lamb managed teams responsible for the entire complaint process, including the triage and assessment of complaints, referrals to advocacy, to mediation, to providers or other agencies, and investigations. She had permanent delegated responsibility for investigations which focused on rest homes, nursing, pharmacy and dentistry.
Prior to this Ms Lamb was a specialist health correspondent for public radio (Radio New Zealand). In 2001/2002 she was a Harkness Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Her health services research on the open disclosure of medical error to patients in United States Hospitals has been widely published, and is still quoted today. The publications include an invited editorial on open disclosure in the British Medical Journal publication: Quality and Safety in Healthcare.
As a health correspondent, Ms Lamb won several high profile media awards such as the 1999 Bill Toft Memorial Award for excellence; Best Radio News reporter; AIDs Foundation Awards in 1999 and 2000 for documentaries on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific and awards for her live radio broadcasts from New York on 9/11. Ms Lamb was a journalist for 27 years and also has extensive experience in print and television.
The Aged Care Commissioner is a statutory appointment made under the Aged Care Act 1997.
To download the original press release announcing the Commissioner's appointment see below: