Interview with lawyer, Jeanette, Onyx Legal

Interview Transcript

Ellie Bakker, Marketing Director, Splice Marketing
Healthcare professionals only need to comply with AHPRA or are there other regulations of regulatory bodies that they need to comply with?

Jeanette Jifkins, Principal Lawyer, Onyx Legal
In most states and territories, there’s another layer of compliance. So for example, here in Queensland we have the Office of the Health Ombudsman. So most health complaints first go to the health ombudsman, who looks at them in respect of their actual regime and then they get referred to AHPRA if there is specific AHPRA issue.

Now the difference between the two is that the, we call him the, or it’s now her, we call the ombudsman an OHO, because it’s the Office of the Health Ombudsman. So in Queensland, the OHO has more power, so they regulate all the unregulated professions. AHPRA has the 14 that they look after. Everybody else who offers a health service is covered by the OHO. So if a complaint goes to them, then they have the power to do something about it.

In New South Wales, it’s the Health Complaints Commission, H triple C. So in New South Wales, it’s the H triple C, and again, it’s a similar sort of regime where they have additional things that they can do to stop people practising .

Ellie Bakker, Marketing Director, Splice Marketing
And what about patient privacy? Is there any concerns around that or any compliance in terms of patient privacy?

Jeanette Jifkins, Principal Lawyer, Onyx Legal
Absolutely. For patient privacy, so the privacy act applies to all health professionals. It doesn’t matter what size of your business. So normally, you may or may not be aware, that small business, which is defined as a business earning less than three million a year in revenue, is not required to comply with the privacy act. However, if you collect health information, you are required to comply. So every health practitioner should have a privacy policy, should understand how they’re dealing with personal information and have processes and procedures in place to manage that.