Hospital Management Investigation

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): Therefore the following question is: if you are not routinely informed of a breach or unauthorised access to private medical records, is it quite possible that there are a huge number of unauthorised accesses made on a continuing basis that are just simply not brought to your attention because of the policy of your department?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:10): I can say probably what has happened in the past with paper records is that there have been breaches, and probably many breaches, and we would never know when and how those breaches would have been done, because with paper records there is very little control over who has access to those papers and who has access to those medical records, how frequently they have done it and whether they have had cause to have a look at those medical records.

Now, with regard to these electronic records, let us make something quite clear: we had a policy in place which detected this breach. People looked at these records who should not have. They were detected and they have been disciplined, and in the case of the other instances where this has happened then, again, that has happened.

I am confident that this is not a widespread occurrence. Certainly it is not a widespread occurrence with electronic health records, because we do have the ability to monitor who looks at those records in a way that we do not with old paper-based records. I can be quite confident that, given the publicity surrounding this case, all SA Health employees will think more than twice before they dare look at a record which they are not entitled to have a look at.