Patient Information
Privacy Leaflet for Patients
The Privacy Leaflet for Patients provides information relating to the privacy of your personal information. It is also available in other languages.
Our Obligations
We are committed to treating your personal information in accordance with privacy law.
This leaflet explains how and why we collect personal information about you, how you can access your information and how your information may be used within the health service or disclosed to other parties.
Collection of your personal information
We collect information directly from you wherever possible. If this is not possible, or in an emergency, we may also need to collect information from a family member, friend, carer or other person who can help us to provide you with appropriate health care.
Security of information collected
Your information may be held in a variety of ways. Most commonly, your information may be held as a paper medical record, and/ or an electronic medical record forming part of a secure computerised database. Some information may also be held in the form of an image including x-ray or photograph, or as an audio or video recording. We follow strict rules and policies regarding the secure storage of personal information in all formats in order to protect your information from unauthorised access, loss or other misuse.
Use or disclosure of information
Your personal health information held either in paper or electronic format may be used by this health service or disclosed outside the health service to enable appropriate health services to be provided to you, for example:
- to other treating health services, hospitals or medical specialists involved in your care and treatment
- to your nominated GP
- to the Ambulance Service of NSW
- in order to process pathology tests, x-rays, and so on
- to contact you for feedback on the services you have received from us to help us evaluate and improve our services
- for billing and debt recovery
- to pastoral care workers, including hospital chaplains, providing spiritual and pastoral care
- to students and other staff for training purposes
- to other health services and authorised third parties to help prevent a serious and imminent threat to someone's life, health or welfare, such as in an emergency
- to claims managers and associated persons for the purpose of managing a complaint, legal action, or claim brought against the health service or a treating health professional
- for purposes relating to the operation of the NSW health service and treatment of our patients, including funding, planning, safety and quality improvement activities
If you do not wish for us to collect, use or disclose certain information about you, you will need to tell us and we will discuss with you any consequences this may have for your health care.
The law also allows or requires for your personal health information to be disclosed to other third parties, for example:
- to State and Commonwealth government agencies for statutory reporting purposes, such as to report notifiable diseases
- to researchers for public interest research projects as approved by a Human Research and Ethics Committee
- to other health services or law enforcement agencies, such as the Police, if you provide us with information relating to a serious crime, including assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and so on
- to comply with a subpoena or search warrant if your personal information is required as evidence in court
Access to your information
You are entitled to request access to all personal information including your medical record held by health services in NSW. Normally you will be asked to apply for access in writing and provide identification. You may be charged a fee if you request copies of your personal information or medical record.
Access to your personal information may be declined in special circumstances, such as where giving access would put you or another person at risk of mental or physical harm.
If you believe the information we hold about you is incorrect or an error has been made, please let us know and we will correct it or add a notation to your medical record.
Requests for access to your medical record should be addressed either to the Medical Records Department or to the manager of the health service facility you attended.
Contact us
If you have questions or a complaint about the privacy of your personal information please contact the Privacy Contact Officer in your Area Health Service.
Additional information
Last updated January 2007.
This Privacy Leaflet for Patients is the 'English - Jan 2007' version. It is the current version and should be made available to all patients accessing NSW Health services.
The 'English translation' version is a direct translation of the leaflets provided in other languages. It is provided as a reference for health service staff only.
This web page is managed and authorised by Web Services Development of the NSW Department of Health. Last updated: 11 March, 2009