Professor Ian Siggins is Chief Executive of Siggins Miller.

Ian Siggins was Australia's senior health ombudsman for ten years, first as foundation Health Services Commissioner in Victoria and then as the first Health Rights Commissioner in Queensland. He earned the deep trust of both the providers and consumers of health and human services. In these tasks, he worked closely with patient organisations, Registration Boards, medical defence agencies, medical colleges, and public and private providers to forge the strongest possible links between patient experience and quality and safety in health care.

Ian has internationally recognised skills as an historian, researcher, educator, consultant, and change agent. His many years' experience in Australia and the US in human and civil rights, as an anti-discrimination commissioner and in health has placed him at the forefront of many reforms to equity.

A research scholar with an international reputation for historical studies, he taught for many years at Yale and Harvard Universities. He was a Fulbright scholar and Fellow of the US National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a member of the NHMRC, the Council of the University of Melbourne, a lecturer in Community Medicine at Melbourne University Medical School, and an Associate in Forensic Medicine at Monash Medical School.

He helped draft NHMRC's guidelines for doctors on giving information to patients, and designed and conducted community consultation and policy development for Australia's first Code of Health Rights and Responsibilities. For many years, his radio broadcasts about quality and safety received wide acceptance by the health professions and the community.

Ian pioneered alternative dispute resolution of health disputes, and set a collaborative stamp on complaint handling law and practice in Australian health care.

His collaborations have had significant public health outcomes:

	Evaluated academic programs, first on the Council of the University of Melbourne, then as a member of undergraduate and graduate faculties at Yale and Harvard, and on the Academic Committee on the Social Sciences of the Victoria Institute of Colleges
	Headed a major community development initiative in a time of racial and civil disruption in the US, and mediated between inner-urban communities and local, state and federal governments and funding bodies
	In a comprehensive public survey of a key industrial region of Victoria, he identified community concerns about the environment, youth offending, metal health, and other social impacts of industrial and commercial developments, and completed a policy and planning overview for state and federal governments on regional development
	Was a member of the Victorian Police/Aboriginal Liaison Committee
	Helped draft NHMRC's guidelines for doctors on giving information to patients
	Led NHMRC's development of national recommendations on organ and tissue donation
	Chaired the review of the Victoria Medical Practitioners Act, and was a member of the advisory groups for review of Queensland health legislation, including the Medical Act and the Mental Health Act
	Designed, managed and conducted community consultation and policy development for Australia's first Code of Health Rights and Responsibilities
	Was directly involved in introducing statutory coverage of HIV/AIDS by the anti-discrimination laws