I have previously written on paramedics seeking to access patient records via The Viewer for the purpose of clinical review, in anticipation of arrival on scene and for training students – see

See also:

In a long and well-argued email, it has been suggested that my interpretation may be wrong. My correspondent says:

Across four posts since October 2023, you have gone to s 161C as the provision that governs a paramedic’s access to The Viewer: the QAS follow up post, the post on looking before arriving, the mine site paramedic post last year, and now the preceptors post. Three of the four concern paramedics employed by QAS. I had taken the section’s application to them for granted, as you did and as my colleagues do. I am now not sure it applies to them at all, and I would value your view.

It starts with a definition. Section 139 defines a prescribed health professional as a health professional, other than a person mentioned in s 139A(1), who is prescribed by regulation. The posts go to regulation 48 and schedule 7, find paramedicine, and stop. So did I, until last week. But the words “other than a person mentioned in section 139A(1)” come first, and s 139A(1)(m) picks up anyone prescribed by regulation as a designated person. Regulation 50(b) of the Hospital and Health Boards Regulation 2023 does exactly that for “a person employed under the Ambulance Service Act 1991, section 13”. That would encompass QAS paramedics employed under that provision. The regulation was in the instrument as made and commenced on 1 September 2023, seven weeks before the follow up post.

There may also be an argument under s 139A(1)(e), which includes a health professional “engaged in delivering a public sector health service, whether at a public sector health service facility or another place”. If QAS ambulance services fall within that statutory description, “another place” is a fair description of a roadside at three in the morning. But regulation 50(b) appears to settle the classification without needing to resolve that additional question.

This is not a question of reconciling competing provisions. The definition does the excluding itself. If I read it correctly, a QAS paramedic employed under s 13 is a designated person and cannot be a prescribed health professional, whatever schedule 7 says about the profession.

If that is right, the consequences run through the posts. Section 161C, including its 600 penalty units, does not reach those QAS paramedics. Nor does s 142A. Their duty of confidence instead falls to be considered under s 142 and, in their own Act, s 49 of the Ambulance Service Act, both carrying 100 penalty units, together with the applicable exceptions and permitted disclosures. Part 7 Division 1 of the latter Act also draws upon the s 139A definition of designated person through s 50D. The limits on what QAS paramedics may access must then be found elsewhere in the statutory framework, the department’s access authorisations and QAS policy, rather than in the particular offence created by s 161C.

Heydon’s Case would ask what mischief Division 4 was enacted to cure. I wonder whether the distinction between prescribed health professionals and designated persons reflects a deliberate separation between external practitioners accessing departmental information and employees already subject to their own confidentiality regime.

Queensland Health’s own documents seem to read it the same way. The Health Provider Portal terms that the 2023 post expanded clause by clause define their user, the Prescribed Health Professional, as an individual “other than a designated person (as defined in section 139A(1) of the HHB Act)”. The portal is the door for GPs, private and mine-site paramedics and other practitioners outside Queensland Health, your mine site correspondent last year was squarely inside it, and I do not think that post is affected.

However, QAS paramedics do not come through that door or accept those terms as the basis of their access. Their access is provisioned through QAS training, and an internal system access. QAS’s Clinical Information Systems policy and procedure list the Ambulance Service Act Part 7 Division 1 and the Information Privacy Act among the governing legislation and do not mention the Hospital and Health Boards Act at all.

A Medical Director’s circular names two purposes for the access: clinical care and reasonable follow up after an episode of care. That is the position the 2023 post questioned by reference to the portal terms and s 161C. If QAS staff are designated persons, the apparent conflict with both may disappear. Whether the authorised follow up is otherwise lawful remains a separate question.

Your privacy point in the 2023 post stands on its own feet and binds QAS as an agency whichever confidentiality section applies to the individual, though since 1 July 2025 it has to be considered under QPP 6 rather than IPP 10. I suspect “approved patient review and quality assurance”, which is how QAS frames follow up, is at least an arguable directly related secondary purpose.

The point is narrower, and I offer the rest as obiter. It is that the provision the posts have relied on as the source of an offence may not apply to the people they were written about, and that the question of what QAS paramedics may look at may be principally one of their employment authorisations, confidentiality obligations and privacy law, rather than Division 4.

So: have I misread the s 139 exclusion, or is there something that keeps a QAS paramedic employed under s 13 within s 161C that I have not found? And if I have it right, does that change the statutory basis for the conclusions in the 2023 and 2026 posts, both of which are quoted back (by many, to your credit) to QAS staff and students as settling the matter?

Let’s see

Given the detail of the question, it’s going to need a detailed analysis, so this answer is, I’m afraid, going to be long with lots of sections quoted in full.  I start with s 161C of the Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (Qld). That section says:

161C PRESCRIBED HEALTH PROFESSIONAL MAY ACCESS PRESCRIBED INFORMATION SYSTEM AND PARTICULAR INFORMATION

(1) A prescribed health professional may access a prescribed information system.

(2) A prescribed health professional must not access information contained in a prescribed information system unless—

(a) the information is necessary for the prescribed health professional to facilitate the care or treatment of an individual; or

(b) the prescribed health professional accesses the information incidentally while accessing information mentioned in paragraph (a) .

Penalty—

Maximum penalty—600 penalty units.

(3) A prescribed health professional must comply with all conditions prescribed by regulation in relation to accessing a prescribed information system and any information contained in the system.

Penalty—

Maximum penalty—600 penalty units.

This section falls within Part 7 – Confidentiality.  Section 139 contains definitions for part 7. It says:

“prescribed health professional” means—

(a) a health professional, other than a person mentioned in section 139A(1), who is prescribed by regulation; or

(b) a person who was a health professional mentioned in paragraph (a).

And

“prescribed information system” means an information system prescribed by regulation.

For the purposes of s 139, the Hospital and Health Boards Regulation 2023 (Qld) r 49 lists ‘The Viewer’ as a ‘prescribed information system’.  

Regulation 48 says the following are prescribed health professionals

(a) a health professional—

(i) who is registered under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law in a health profession mentioned in schedule 7, part 1, column 1; and

(ii) whose registration under that Law is of a type mentioned opposite the health profession in column 2 of the schedule;

(b) a health professional who—

(i) provides a health service mentioned in schedule 7 , part 2 , column 1; and

(ii) satisfies the condition for provision of the health service mentioned opposite in column 2 of the schedule.

A person with general registration in paramedicine is listed in schedule 7.

But, points out my correspondent, the regulation is only relevant to people not mentioned in s 139A(1). Section 139A(1) uses the term a ‘designated person’.  A designated person is

(a) a public service employee employed in the department; or

(b) a health service employee; or

(c) the chief health officer; or

(ca) a deputy chief health officer; or

(d) the chief psychiatrist; or

(e) a health professional (other than a person mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (d) ) engaged in delivering a public sector health service, whether at a public sector health service facility or another place; or

(f) a member of a board of a Service; or

(g) a person (other than a person mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b)) engaged temporarily to provide administrative support services for a Service or the department; or

(h) a person being educated or trained at a public sector health service facility as part of the requirements for—

(i) registration, enrolment or other authorisation (however described) to practise as a health professional; or

(ii) completion of a course of study qualifying a person for registration, enrolment or authorisation mentioned in subparagraph (i); or

(i) a person providing education or training at a public sector health service facility to a person mentioned in paragraph (h); or

(j) a contractor who accesses confidential information under a contract to provide information and communication technology or information management services to a Service or the department; or

(k) a volunteer carrying out duties at a public sector health service facility on behalf of a Service or the department; or

(l) an inspector; or

(m) another person prescribed under a regulation for this paragraph to be a designated person.

As my correspondent points out, r 50 says:

For section 139A(1)(m) of the Act, each of the following persons is prescribed as a designated person—

(a) the commissioner of the Queensland Ambulance Service appointed under the Ambulance Service Act 1991, section 4;

(b) a person employed under the Ambulance Service Act 1991, section 13.

Persons employed under s 13 include ‘ambulance officers’.

We can now rewrite the definition of ‘prescribed health professional’ taking into account those definitions.  It says, in effect,

“prescribed health professional” means—

(a) a paramedic, other than a person employed under the Ambulance Service Act 1991

We’re not interested in former practitioners, so we don’t need to worry about subparagraph (b).

If that’s correct (and it seems that it is) then it does appear the reference to a ‘prescribed health professional’ is about health professionals who do not work for Queensland Health or QAS.  So s 161C is about access to the Viewer by health practitioners outside those health services. It is not about access by QAS paramedics.

So where does that leave my earlier answers?

It follows that my reasoning was wrong.  I note that I’m quoting the Hospital and Health Boards Regulation 2023 (Qld) that came into effect on 1 September 2023 ie 20 days before my first post. But before that the Hospital and Health Boards Regulation 2012 (Qld) rr 34A to 34C were in the same terms, so it is not the case that the law changed after my post. I simply got it wrong.

But if my reasoning was wrong, I’m still not sure my conclusions are; so let’s return to the questions. They were:

  1. Can a QAS paramedic access The Viewer to follow up on a patient they treated?
  2. Can a QAS paramedic access The Viewer to see what information there is about a person who they are proceeding to and who they anticipate will be a patient? and
  3. Can a QAS paramedic access The Viewer and show the contents of what they find to a student in order to discuss an interesting case to assist the student’s learning?

Accessing The Viewer

If s 161C does not apply to QAS paramedics, what is their authority to access The Viewer.  Queensland Health own it, so the terms of access are set by Queensland Health. Note that s 161C is not so much a permissive section but a restrictive one. It is not the case that legislation is required to allow access, but legislation has been introduced to restrict when external practitioners can access it and to back the Department’s terms with criminal penalty ie to give ‘teeth’ to the Department’s restrictions.  It means that if a QAS paramedic accessing The Viewer for reasons other than ‘to facilitate the care or treatment of an individual’ they do not commit an offence under the Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011(Qld) s 161C but that does not mean that such access is therefore permitted.

Health services collect and record patient information for many reasons but the most important is for continuity of care that is so that practitioners making health care decisions and recommendations can see what has happened before. They are also kept for quality control and so that care decisions can be reviewed to identify learning for future practice – ie to see why the outcome was not what was expected whether that is a poor outcome or in fact a better-than-expected outcome in which case one might want to ask ‘what went so well there and can we make that happen again?’.

It is axiomatic that health records contain sensitive information (Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld) sch 5 definitions of ‘sensitive information’ and ‘health information’). The Queensland Health Privacy principles are set out in Schedule 3 to the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld). Principle 6.1 says:

If an agency holds personal information about an individual that was collected for a particular purpose (the “primary purpose”), the agency must not use or disclose the information for another purpose (the “secondary purpose”) unless—

(a) the individual has consented to the use or disclosure of the information; or

(b) QPP 6.2 applies in relation to the use or disclosure of the information.

We’ll assume that in the situations under discussion the patient’s express consent has not been obtained so QPP 6.2 is relevant. That Principle says:

6.2 This QPP applies in relation to the use or disclosure of personal information about an individual if—

(a) the individual would reasonably expect the agency to use or disclose the information for the secondary purpose and the secondary purpose is—

(i) if the information is sensitive information—directly related to the primary purpose;

That begs the question, and minds may differ on the answer, whether a person would ‘reasonably expect’ the health service to use the information contained in the patient record to:

  • Provide feedback to treating paramedics;
  • To inform a paramedic en route; or
  • As a training tool for students.

My guess is that they probably would. Most people would accept that public health services are also training services and further, that practitioners’ have both an emotional and professional interest in knowing how patients they have treated have progressed and whether they made a useful professional contribution to the person’s well-being. Let us assume then that we can answer 6.2(a) in the affirmative.

Is that purpose ‘directly related to the primary purpose’ for which the information is obtained?  To understand that we may need a better understanding of the primary purpose for which health information is collected. The Queensland Health Queensland Privacy Principles Policy sets out why information is collected. That includes, inter alia, to:

  • Provide you with health and well-being services; and
  • Ensure you receive appropriate treatment and follow-up care

Further information is provided on Health records and personal information. The website says:

Protecting your information

All Queensland Health staff are bound by a strict legal duty of confidentiality. It is an offence for our staff to give information about you to anyone except under limited circumstances set out in legislation. We maintain strict security policies and practices with respect to who has access to personal information about you.

If you have any questions about privacy and confidentiality in Queensland Health facilities, talk to the privacy contact at your hospital or health service (HHS).

Who can access your information

After you are discharged from hospital, we will generally provide information to your doctor about your treatment, and any special instructions related to your care. If you do not want this information to be sent to your doctor, please let us know before you are discharged.

Your records may be accessed by our administrative support staff to perform tasks such as booking appointments and communicating with you and other areas of Queensland Health.

Sometimes your local doctor may contact us for information about your treatment. In this case we may give them these details. If you do not want this to happen, please let us know as soon as possible.

If you receive health care at a service or residential care facility that is not operated by Queensland Health, and that facility contacts us to obtain information about you, we will release health information to help your treatment.

In other situations we will usually obtain your consent prior to releasing any information.

It goes onto say:

When information may be disclosed

There may be occasions when we need to use or disclose some of your information, such as:

  • ensuring you receive appropriate treatment and follow-up care.
  • undertaking quality assurance activities and other activities that help us monitor and improve the way we operate.
  • professional supervision or mentoring of our staff…

The Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (Qld) ss 143-161 set out when confidential information may be shared by a designated person. The headings for those sections are (emphasis added);

143 Disclosure required or permitted by law

144 Disclosure with consent

145 Disclosure of confidential information for care or treatment of person

146 Disclosure to person who has sufficient interest in health and welfare of person

147 Disclosure to lessen or prevent serious risk to life, health or safety

148 Disclosure for the protection, safety or wellbeing of a child

149 Disclosure for funding arrangements and public health monitoring

150 Disclosure for purposes relating to health services

150A Disclosure for purposes related to approved research

151 Disclosure to Commonwealth, another State or Commonwealth or State entity

152 Disclosure to or by inspector

153 Disclosure to Act officials

154 Disclosure to or by relevant chief executive

155 Disclosure to health practitioner registration board

156 Disclosure to health ombudsman

157 Disclosure to person performing functions under Coroners Act 2003

157A Disclosure to inspector of detention services

157B Disclosure to person performing functions under Mental Health Act 2016

158 Disclosure to lawyers

159 Disclosure to Australian Red Cross Society

160 Disclosure of confidential information in the public interest

160A Disclosure for purpose of Health Transparency Act 2019

161 Necessary or incidental disclosure

Patient follow up

Section 146 says:

A designated person or prescribed health professional may disclose confidential information if the confidential information— …

(b) is communicated by a health professional, under the recognised standards of the relevant health profession, to a person who, in the health professional’s reasonable opinion, has a sufficient personal or professional interest in the health and welfare of the person to whom the information relates.

One might think that the paramedic who treated the patient has a ‘sufficient … professional interest’.  The section gives examples – it says:

Example of persons to whom a health professional may communicate confidential information—

• a spouse, parent or child of the person

• another relative of the person

• a friend of the person who has a close personal relationship with the person and a personal interest in the person’s welfare

• an adult who is providing home care to the person who has a chronic condition or a disability

• a general practitioner who has had responsibility for the care and treatment of the person

The online information says ‘we will generally provide information to your doctor about your treatment, and any special instructions related to your care’ that is information for future care. The example in the Act however says information can be shared with ‘a general practitioner who has had responsibility for the care and treatment of the person’ (past tense, emphasis added). Presumably then, it may also be shared with a paramedic who ‘has had responsibility for the care and treatment of the person’.

The online information also says that information may be shared for ‘professional supervision or mentoring of our staff’. Giving feedback to paramedics about the outcomes for a patient they treated would be consistent with both those objectives.

That problem is that even if (contrary to what I said in Giving feedback to paramedics – Victoria (November 8, 2024) and Giving feedback to paramedics (April 1, 2017)) sharing information with a paramedic about what the outcome was for a person they treated is permitted, it doesn’t necessarily justify access to The Viewer for that purpose. As section 146 says, information may be shared by a health professional who must make their own judgement about whether the person seeking the information ‘has a sufficient personal or professional interest’. In the context of a paramedic seeking follow up could ask a doctor or nurse ‘what happened to the patient we brought in yesterday?’ and the doctor or nurse could pass on relevant information. But it is not clear that would extend to allowing the paramedic to read the patient’s notes where information unrelated to what they did can be seen.

I suppose the answer is that if the relevant decision maker in the Department has endorsed the policy set out in the post QAS paramedics accessing patient information via ‘The Viewer’ for ‘follow up’. (October 20, 2023) then they have made the assessment that a person who complies with that policy has ‘sufficient professional interest’ to justify sharing all the information that can be found in The Viewer.

My correspondent says:

However, QAS paramedics do not come through that door or accept those terms as the basis of their access. Their access is provisioned through QAS training, and an internal system access. QAS’s Clinical Information Systems policy and procedure list the Ambulance Service Act Part 7 Division 1 and the Information Privacy Act among the governing legislation and do not mention the Hospital and Health Boards Act at all.

I still think that the Hospital and Health Boards Act is relevant as it is the hospitals that are sharing their information with the QAS paramedic and the question has to be are they allowed to share that information. It’s not so much about access to The Viewer but what information is on it and what is on it, and what is being shared, is information from the Hospitals and Health Boards.

Accessing records before accessing the patient

The online information says ‘There may be occasions when we need to use or disclose some of your information, such as: … ensuring you receive appropriate treatment and follow-up care.’ Section 145 says:

A designated person or prescribed health professional may disclose confidential information if the disclosure is for the care or treatment of the person to whom the information relates.

Arguably getting patient information en route is for that purpose of ensuring the patient does receive appropriate treatment as the patient’s condition and any future treatment can be put in the context of wholistic care.  Although the paramedics are not yet treating anyone they are accessing the information for the purpose of providing ‘care and treatment’ that they reasonably expect to give. Just as one might expect a doctor to read the notes in anticipation of a consultation, there can hardly be an objection if the consultation doesn’t occur eg the patient doesn’t show up.

Teaching students

A designated person is not only a QAS paramedic, it is also (Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (Qld) s 139A(1)):

(h) a person being educated or trained at a public sector health service facility as part of the requirements for—

(i) registration, enrolment or other authorisation (however described) to practise as a health professional; or

(ii) completion of a course of study qualifying a person for registration, enrolment or authorisation mentioned in subparagraph (i);

Information may be shared with a student but it cannot just be ‘because we can’; there has to be a reason. Section 150 of the Hospital and Health Boards Act says

A designated person may disclose confidential information if—

the disclosure is to another designated person for evaluating, managing, monitoring or planning health services; or

A QAS paramedic is a designated person, sharing information with another designated person (ie a student – assuming that QAS is a ‘public sector health facility’) for the purpose of ‘evaluating’ the health service ie for teaching this is what we did and this is what went well and this is what we may have done better.

It can be noted that use of case scenarios is a fundamental part of health care teaching but great care must be taken. Doctors who want to present a case at a conference or write it up in a journal have to take care to deidentify the patient and where possible get consent.  They cannot just share the information, even internally, just because it would be helpful.

And there is the decision in Williams v State of Queensland (Queensland Health) [2025] QIRC 228

This is the case discussed in my post Nurse disciplined over access to Queensland’s ‘The Viewer’ (October 8, 2025). Williams was a public sector employee and this was an appeal against a decision to the effect that she should be disciplined as she had ‘on multiple occasions … accessed confidential patient records of individual that you were not providing care or treatment to’ ([2]).

Ms Williams, it would appear, was a designated person (Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (Qld) s 139A(1)(b)). Because s 161C applies to a prescribed health professional, but that term does not include a ‘health service employee’ then prima facie s 161C would not apply to Ms Williams. And we can note that this case was not a prosecution for a breach of s 161C, it was disciplinary action under the Public Sector Act 2022 (Qld).

Even so the initial decision maker (ie the person who made the decision the subject of the appeal, not the Industrial Relations Commission) relied on s 161C. At [58] we’re told:

… the Respondent submits that the relevant legislation was clearly articulated in the first show cause notice, including specific references to the requirements of the Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (‘the HHB Act’), including s161C, which states that a prescribed health professional ‘must not access information contained in a prescribed information system unless the information is necessary for the prescribed health professional to facilitate the care or treatment of an individual … ‘.

That is ‘Ms Kylie Pippos, Executive Director People and Culture, DDHHS’ thought that s 161C governed the terms of access by a nurse employed in the public sector. The Industrial Relations Commission continued (at [59]-[60]):

… in the second show cause notice the Decision-Maker referred to legislative obligations that apply to prescribed information systems, including The Viewer, and determined that the Appellant’s conduct was a departure from these standards as the Appellant had inappropriately used The Viewer when she was not providing care or treatment to the identified patients in any capacity.

The Respondent goes on to note that whilst not explicitly stated in the second show cause notice, the Decision-Maker was referring to documented requirements employees are required to comply with when using an information system that stores patient information including:

• When an employee’s access to The Viewer is approved, an employee is informed that The Viewer contains clinical and administrative data which should only be accessed for treatment related purposes.

• When an employee logs into The Viewer, they agree to The Viewer Terms and Conditions of Use, which informs that patients who access public sector health services expect that their information remains private and confidential and that Queensland Health staff must abide by Part 7 of the HHB Act and the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld).

I think, therein, lies the answer.  I cannot access The Viewer and I don’t know what the log in says, but if the login that paramedics see is the same as Nurse Williams saw then it has to be read at face value. If paramedics when logging in are told that the information ‘should only be accessed for treatment related purposes’ and that ‘Queensland Health staff [or in context, QAS staff] must abide by Part 7 of the HHB Act and the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld)’ then it follows that the requirement of s 161C applies even if, in this case it is not backed by criminal sanction but by disciplinary action.  And if that’s true then my original conclusions stand, one should not access The Viewer – given one gets access to the person’s entire medical history – except ‘to facilitate the care or treatment of an individual’ and not for follow up or as a teaching tool and arguably not in anticipation that one might treat them.

Can all of the above fit together

I think the conclusions, above, can fit together. Information could be shared with a paramedic to allow them to follow up on a patient and information could be shared with a student provided that it is limited to what they need to know for that purpose and not simply – here’s the patient’s medical record, read it.

In my post Paramedic preceptors accessing The Viewer with student (September 18, 2026) I said

It might be worth thinking of The Viewer as you would the medical records department in a hospital. I anticipate that if a paramedic went to the medical records department and asked for the records of a patient they had delivered to the hospital sometime before because they wanted to see ‘what happened’ or they wanted to ‘show my student’, the records clerk would deny access.  If the situation is one where you would not be given access to the patient’s printed medical records, then it is a situation where you cannot access that information on The Viewer.

Equally if a paramedic or a doctor was saying ‘I’m treating Ms Jones right now, I need her record’ the medical records clerk would say ‘sure’ and hand them over.

Conclusion

I appreciate that I am writing this from a distant arm chair.  I do not work for, and have never worked for QAS or Queensland Health so I have no insight into the culture of the institutions. Equally I cannot access the various internal policy documents nor see the warnings that come with a log-in to The Viewer. Subject to that I agree that I have misread s 161C in earlier posts.  In my post Paramedic preceptors accessing The Viewer with student (September 18, 2026) I said:

We can therefore rewrite s 161C(2) so that it says:

A paramedic must not access information contained in The Viewer unless—

(a) the information is necessary for the paramedic to facilitate the care or treatment of an individual; or

(b) the paramedic accesses the information incidentally while accessing information mentioned in paragraph (a).

What I should have said (given s 139A and r 50) was:

A paramedic, other than a QAS employee, must not access information contained in The Viewer unless—

(a) the information is necessary for the paramedic to facilitate the care or treatment of an individual; or

(b) the paramedic accesses the information incidentally while accessing information mentioned in paragraph (a).

If that’s true then the right of paramedics who are QAS employees to access The Viewer is governed by the terms on which access is given and the application of Queensland Privacy Principles. If QAS employees, like Nurse Williams, are advised that ‘The Viewer contains clinical and administrative data which should only be accessed for treatment related purposes’ (emphasis added) then the implication is the same – and accessing the record for follow up or to teach students is not for a ‘treatment related purpose’.

What’s the risk?

A risk assessment is a combination of how likely is a bad outcome, and how bad is the outcome likely to be. If a QAS paramedic seeks access to The Viewer in compliance with the policy described in my post QAS paramedics accessing patient information via ‘The Viewer’ for ‘follow up’ (October 20, 2023) then I suppose the likelihood of a poor outcome (for the paramedic) is low as QAS are not likely to complain.  And as argued, the outcome will not be an allegation of a criminal offence contrary to s 161C.  But, on the other hand, Nurse Williams accessed The Viewer for a number of reasons that, to me, seemed reasonable and ended up the subject of disciplinary action because ‘on multiple occasions … [she] accessed confidential patient records of individual that [she was] … not providing care or treatment to’.  We don’t know how that matter ended up but win lose or draw the process is certainly a consequence no-one wants to go through.

On balance I would suggest that a QAS paramedic who accesses The Viewer in accordance with the directions and policy given to him or her by QAS is going to be on reasonably safe grounds.

So what are my answers now?

  1. Can a QAS paramedic use The Viewer to follow up on a patient that they treated? I think it would be reasonably safe if that was done in accordance with QAS policy but one would need to exercise caution if they are given documentation or are required to confirm that information ‘should only be accessed for treatment related purposes’.
  2. Can a QAS paramedic access The Viewer en route? I think in retrospect that would be permitted under the Health and Hospitals Board Act 2011 (Qld) s 145 and the Queensland Health published privacy policy.
  3. Can a QAS paramedic access The Viewer to share information with a student? That’s a hard one. Making records in order to review care and potentially learn is probably a primary purpose for which information is recorded but it is not explicitly stated in the QAS privacy policy.  A better option would be to extract the information relevant to the paramedic student, ideally de-identifying the patient, and use that as a teaching resource rather than allow the student to view the patient’s entire medical history. One still runs into the problem of accessing The Viewer for a purpose other than a ‘treatment related purposes’.

Clear as mud?

A word on the process

I make no apology for reviewing my earlier decisions and I think my correspondent for taking the time to make the argument and to point out my omissions.  That is how learning works. It is certainly the advantage lawyers in practice have, they can have these discussions with each other, and if they are in a case, each side puts their arguments. It is those that refine the issues in dispute where one says ‘I think this is the law’ another says ‘I think you’re wrong’.  And they may persuade each other and that issue at least is settled, or it goes to a court for a judge to rule. And every argument that gets before a judge has a winner and loser.  (And I’m reminded of a story I was told of an issue where one side was sure they were right, won in the lower courts, had eminent silk (QC’s) assure them they were right, and then lost 7:0 in the High Court).

When I write these posts I don’t have a contradictor to say ‘but you’ve missed this’ but when I do (as in this case) I welcome it. It does confirm the advice, below, that this blog is not legal advice and you should not rely on what I say to affect your legal position.

This blog is a general discussion of legal principles only.  It is not legal advice. Do not rely on the information here to make decisions regarding your legal position or to make decisions that affect your legal rights or responsibilities. For advice on your particular circumstances always consult an admitted legal practitioner in your state or territory.