Page 41 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Act. As such, it would be inefficient and ineffective to continue with a defunct treatment scheme as presently appears in the Drugs of Dependence Act when an alternative regime exists under separate legislation and also inappropriate to have two separate regimes regulating the same thing, thus creating unnecessary confusion and ambiguity.
Given these circumstances, there is no longer any need to continue with the treatment scheme as outlined under the Drugs of Dependence Act. However, the government will be bringing forward an amendment, which Mr Hanson and Ms Bresnan have talked about, that is essentially a transition clause to provide for those that are currently on a treatment order under part 9 of the Drugs of Dependence Act following that section’s repeal. I will move that in the detail stage.
Regarding the second amendment to the Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act which allows for the destruction of a health record when an electronic copy has been created, this amendment creates a clarifying provision that is intended to enable, not limit, where a health record-keeper can, but does not have to, destroy a record if an electronic copy of the record has been created.
As members will be aware, last year in the Assembly I tabled a copy of the GP task force’s final report. One of the recommendations made in that report was that there should be amending legislation to clarify the status of e-health records. On careful consideration of their recommendation, it was found that the confusion rests with a missing link between the Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act and the Electronic Transactions Act 2001.
The dictionary to the Health Records Act defines a health record to include part or parts of a record. Based on this definition, the destruction of any part of a health record, including the destruction of a copy, would be regarded as a destruction of the record, even where a complete copy of the record has been made and is intended to be retained. However, the Electronic Transactions Act provides that a requirement under territory law to retain a document in a particular form can be satisfied by the retention of the document in electronic form, provided the integrity of the document is maintained.
At present, there is a missing link which makes the necessary connection between those two acts. This gap has been shown to create undesirable ambiguity around whether it is permissible for a health record-keeper to destroy a health record once an electronic copy of the health record is made. By clearly drawing a link between the two pieces of legislation, ambiguities will be resolved and impediments to the proper and intended application of the Health Records Act will be removed. I commend the bill to the Assembly and I thank other members for their contribution.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video