Health records amendments to support consumer access

ACT Minister for Health, Katy Gallagher MLA, will introduce a bill into the ACT Legislative Assembly tomorrow to require medical practices to notify ACT Health and consumers of practice closures, mergers and relocations.

The Health Legislation Amendment Bill amends the Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997 in response to recommendations made by the ACT GP Taskforce in its Final Report entitled: General Practice and Sustainable Primary Health Care: The Way Forward.

“It was clear from the observations made by the GP Taskforce that serious consideration was needed in the area of health records, in particular, the issue of consumer access to records,” Ms Gallagher said.

“Recent general practice amalgamations have also highlighted concerns over access to records and there appears to be several sections of the Act that have not been applied consistently because of confusion or ambiguity.

“For example, the timeframes around when a consumer should be provided with a copy of their record after a request has been made seems to be applied differently by different providers,” she said.

This bill adopts a majority of the legislative amendments recommended by the Taskforce and seeks to do the following:

• Require practices to provide a period of four weeks notice to consumers and the community before a closure, merger or relocation of the practice;
• Enable the prioritisation of urgent requests for the transfer of health records;
• Clarify that consumers can only ask for a copy of their health record and not an original;
• Clarify the timeframes around when a requested copy of a record must be provided by a record keeper;
• Require practices to notify ACT Health of practice closures, merges or relocates; and
• Require that when ACT Health is notified of a closure, merger or relocation of a practice, that the ACT Health Services Commissioner be promptly informed of the notification.

“Requiring practices to notify authorities of changes to their location will have the added benefit of enabling authorities to maintain an ACT general practice directory for disaster and emergency management and planning purposes,” Ms Gallagher said.

“The approach adopted in this Bill strikes a good balance between meeting the interests of the health record keeper, consumers and an overarching public health interest.

“While the ACT Government has limited capacity to control and regulate general practices, which are essentially private businesses, the Government is taking action where it can to support consumers and GPs.”

9 December 2009