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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 1192 ..

Mr Speaker,

The Health (Amendment) Bill 1998 seeks to amend the Health Act 1993 by adding a set of provisions which regulate the establishment and conduct of quality assurance committees in private health facilities. Under the existing provisions such protection was provided only to members of quality assurance committees in public hospitals.

The legislative protection is provided as a means of encouraging the critical review of health care practices and procedures in prescribed private health facilities and aims at reducing the incidence of adverse patient outcomes. Under the new provisions, the members of the approved quality assurance committees in private hospitals and private day hospital facilities are protected from litigation in relation to their conduct as members of the committees.

In approving the committee, the Minister has to be satisfied that the committee is established by a prescribed body, the members are appointed from time to time in accordance with the rules or official procedures of the body and the committee has functions for which the Bill provides protection.

The private sector committees' functions are:

. to assess and evaluate the health services provided by the relevant prescribed body, to report and make recommendations to the body concerning those services and to monitor the implementation of its recommendations, or

. to conduct research or investigations into morbidity and mortality in the relevant prescribed body and to report, and make recommendations, to the body in relation to that research or those investigations.

The Bill also provides that, in order to approve the committee, the Minister has to be satisfied that there is public interest in restricting the disclosure of information compiled by the committee in the exercise of its functions.

If an applicant is not satisfied with the Minister's decision, the Bill provides a mechanism for reviewing it, by expressly providing that an appeal against such a decision could be lodged with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The existing Act provides that a present or past member of an approved public sector committee who has acted, or omitted to act, in good faith in the capacity or purported capacity as a member is not liable to an action in relation to such an act and will be indemnified by the Territory against any costs such a member incurred in contesting such action.

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