# Health and Disability Commissioner — Annual Report 2025

Document ID: doc-0014  
Publisher: Health and Disability Commissioner  
Catalogue date: 2025  
Physical PDF pages: 96  
Original capture/access label: June 2026  
Source and content reviewed: 9 October 2026

Original local PDF: [2025 - HDC - Annual Report.pdf](/pdfs/2025%20-%20HDC%20-%20Annual%20Report.pdf)

Primary publisher source: [Official PDF](https://www.hdc.org.nz/media/ha5ntqul/hdc-annual-report-2025.pdf)

## What the document contributes

HDC’s ninety-six-page annual report covers the year ended 30 June 2025 across health and disability services. It reports complaint volumes, resolution activity, advocacy, service performance and finances, with a dedicated account of the Aged Care Commissioner’s work. Older-person themes include provider communication, person-centred dementia care, falls and pressure-injury management, and follow-up of the twenty recommendations in the March 2024 monitoring report. Complaint and engagement counts describe HDC’s workload and oversight; they do not measure national harm prevalence or establish completed sector reform.

## Substantive findings

- The reporting period is 1 July 2024–30 June 2025 and the document identifies itself as Annual Report 2025. Its scope includes all health and disability consumers, not only aged care.
- HDC received 3,477 complaints and closed 4,406 during the year, with 1,893 open at 30 June 2025. Closures include complaints received in earlier periods, so they are not outcomes for one new-complaint cohort.
- The organisation-type table records 154 complaints concerning aged residential care facilities and 50 concerning home care services providers in 2024/25. These are complaint categories, not counts of distinct unsafe facilities or rates per resident.
- The older-people section states that around 18% of HDC complaints concern care provided to older people. This proportion is not an estimate that 18% of older people experienced harm.
- The Aged Care Commissioner and team reported 162 stakeholder engagements and 53 engagements with older people and family/whānau. These are activity counts, not unique participant totals or a representative population survey.
- HDC finalised a monitoring approach and sought stakeholder progress on the twenty recommendations in Amplifying the Voices of Older People. The report planned updates in 2025/26; it does not claim all recommendations had been implemented.
- Case discussions identify communication and person-centred dementia care, hospital falls management, and pressure-injury assessment and care planning as improvement themes. Individual case findings do not establish the frequency of these issues throughout the sector.

## Identity, dates and provenance

The report is labelled Annual Report 2025 and covers 1 July 2024–30 June 2025. The catalogue retains 2025 at year precision because the first public-release day was not established. A publisher announcement dated 13 January 2026 discusses the report; it is not substituted for the report-year label. PDF creation/export metadata is not a publication date.

The original PDF and June 2026 capture label are preserved. The October 2026 review date records source verification and catalogue enrichment; it is not a replacement publication or capture date. This companion brief is an editorial summary, not a substitute publisher document.

## Where to check the original

Physical page 28: complaint receipts, closures and open stock. Page 32 (printed page 30): organisation categories. Pages 52–53 (printed pages 50–51): Aged Care Commissioner work and case themes. Pages 67–68 (printed pages 65–66): monitoring and engagement performance.

## Evidence limits and use

These administrative statistics describe complaints reaching HDC and its response. They exclude people who did not complain and lack a population-at-risk denominator; they cannot rank national provider safety or estimate older-person harm prevalence. Annual closures include older cases. The report’s officeholder and recruitment statements describe its historical publication context and are not a current directory. Monitoring of recommendations and planned updates are distinct from evidence that recommendations were implemented. Case findings are specific to the cases discussed.

## Publisher references

- [Matching official PDF](https://www.hdc.org.nz/media/ha5ntqul/hdc-annual-report-2025.pdf)
- [HDC publisher announcement, 13 January 2026](https://www.hdc.org.nz/news-resources/news/annual-report-shows-major-lift-in-complaint-resolution/)
- [HDC corporate publications](https://www.hdc.org.nz/about-us/corporate-publications/)