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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 5003 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The legislation is based on the existing information privacy principles in the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988, with some modification to have regard to special health-related situations. The Commissioner for Health Complaints has found that privacy issues are of great concern in the community. Establishing clearer guidelines which cover both the private and public sectors is an important step forward.

Mr Speaker, this Bill also establishes a regime of access rights for consumers to their own personal health information, including special rules for the records of children, people under a legal disability and deceased people. It provides for a general right of access by a health care consumer to her or his own personal health information, with some limited exceptions relating to statements made in confidence by third parties and access having a reasonable likelihood of resulting in harm to the consumer or someone else. While there is a provision for health services to be exempted, the Bill is intended to have as wide an application as possible.

As I said on Tuesday, health consumers have been kept in the dark for too long about many aspects of their health care. They have often been poorly informed by health service providers about their own health and health care options, the claim being that most patients do not want to know. Giving people the right to access their health records is also an important step in empowering people about their health which will lead to better health outcomes, I believe. It will also provide a vehicle for people to discuss their health and treatment more openly. Too many aspects of treatment and care are mystified by the health professions, leaving people feeling scared, confused and intimidated. We all have stories of coming out of a doctor's surgery with more questions than answers.

Obviously, there are many excellent health professionals who are keen to see consumers have such access. They see it as an important step in enhancing the health care partnership. However, giving better information to consumers is strongly resisted by some health care providers. In fact, much important information is often not even collected by them. This leaves not only consumers but also health care institutions and individual providers with no real measures of their performance. Many doctors have opposed this legislation, arguing that the status quo should remain.

Finally, I know there were some issues raised in the Scrutiny of Bills Committee report about this legislation. I have seen a response from the Government which I believe adequately addresses the concerns. In particular, there was a concern raised about the possibility that the legislation might be a vehicle for action in negligence or breach of statutory duty. While this is obviously possible, I do not believe we will see a flood of court actions as a result of this legislation. On the contrary, I concur that this Bill introduces more certainty and a level playing field for all health providers in the ACT. As I said earlier, many health providers already provide access to health records, and they would not be doing so if they greatly feared litigation or if it increased their costs significantly.

As Mrs Carnell said in her conclusion, there are further issues that should be dealt with, including the standard of health records and the availability of health status reports prepared about a person's health or disability on both sides in litigation. I look forward to seeing support for this Bill, and I look forward to dealing with these other issues in the next Assembly.

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