The nurses union and Canberra Health Services have clashed over the legality of alleged privacy breaches, with the union accusing senior health executives of also sharing patient information.
On another day of revelations over alleged leaking of sensitive patient information the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation was named as the "industrial partner" who had received information from Canberra Health Services staff.
Mental Health Minister Emma Davidson revealed the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation ACT branch was the recipient of the patient records on Thursday after days of refusing to give information about the organisation.
But the union has come out swinging against both the Ms Davidson and Canberra Health Services.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation ACT branch Matthew Daniel has argued disclosures about patients' health information was lawful. He said it was a "complete surprise" when Canberra Health Services levelled accusations that patient privacy had breached.
He has also levelled extraordinary accusations at executives and directors within Canberra Health Services, saying if the nurses had made unlawful disclosures then so had they and they should be stood down and face investigation.
Mr Daniel said the union had a long standing relationship with Canberra Health Services around the lawful disclosure of personal information when nurses and midwives had specific concerns around patient safety.
"That's underpinned by law but it's also reflected in CHS' own policy which indicates there are exceptions to providing information without consent," he told The Canberra Times.
Canberra Health Services has alleged staff had leaked patient records over a period of years. Thirteen patients had their privacy breached, the organisation alleged.
Canberra Health Services chief executive Dave Peffer said there were exceptions to sharing personal information but said the information shared did not meet this threshold.
Mr Peffer pointed to examples such as when clinicians were responding to a mental health patient with escalated behaviours in partnership with police or paramedics.
He also said there were exceptions where paediatric teams needed to make disclosures to child protection.
"There's exceptions that exist as to where the information can be shared and that's true within the act it does provide for circumstances where there is a significant risk to life or health that information can be disclosed without the consent of the patient," he said.
"It is subject to the investigation but we wouldn't be taking the action if we thought the threshold hadn't been met."
Mr Daniel said he was unable to comment on the specific cases and could not say what type of information was released to the union. He said when nurses or midwives brought concerns to the union the information was used to reflect those concerns back to Canberra Health Services.
But the ACT branch secretary also said if nurses were guilty of unlawfully disclosing information then so were bosses within Canberra Health Services as they had disclosed patient information to the ANMF.
"We would expect that they have shared that information, the executives and directors, understanding their obligations, and, and the arguments, we would expect, why they would have provided it to us because they believed it to be lawful," Mr Daniel said.
"But if we know because of the way that they treating nurses, executives and directors of CHS now also have to have those same sorts of benchmarks or unlawfulness applied to them and we would expect to see a number of executives and or directors stood down pending investigation."
Mr Peffer emailed staff on March 6 to say whole clinical records had been "deliberately emailed" outside of the organisation over a period of years.
He said it was a "serious breach" and that patients had been let down.
Ms Davidson said she was notified on February 8 about the data breach, which is now the subject of police and integrity commission investigations. After days of refusing to provide answers, the Minister for Mental Health delivered a statement in the Legislative Assembly.
"An audit was undertaken to determine the breadth of the breach which uncovered significant and sustained breaches of the Health Records Privacy and Access Act 1997 and the Privacy Act 1988, this took some time," Ms Davidson said.
"But by 27 February, we had a pretty clear understanding of the number of patients and staff involved. The breach identified that the personal health information of 13 [Canberra Health Services] patients had been shared with an industrial partner and other private email accounts.
"And that industrial partner was the ANMF ACT branch."
Ms Davidson said she could not provide the information sooner as she wanted to ensure all patients and their families had received all the necessary information beforehand.
The Mental Health Minister said she had approached the union for a meeting but this request had been declined.
Mr Daniel told ABC Radio that if he or a loved one was a mental health patient, and a nurse had concerns about their care, he hoped they would seek help from the union.
"[If] they're getting no support, and they can see that this patient's care is suffering, I would hope that my nurse might seek the union," he said.
"[They] could go to them and perhaps in a de-identified way ... talk about my case and his or her concerns about my care and seek assistance."
Mr Daniel said he would not meet with Ms Davidson as he believed she had already reached her own conclusions about the guilt of the nurses involved.
"On that basis there was no prospect of having a discussion with the minister, particularly when we'd already commenced with getting legal advice between us and CHS," he said.
Mr Daniel also said it was only an allegation at this point in time and it was "particularly disturbing" that Mr Peffer and Ms Davidson had been saying breaches had occurred.
"We're not aware of any investigations that have been concluded and a report made so it's particularly disturbing that Mr Peffer and Emma Davidson continually claim there are breaches, they are alleged breaches," he said.
In an email to union members, Mr Daniel said it was "reprehensible" that authorities had said there had been breaches before there had been an investigation.
Health authorities have already sacked one staff member allegedly involved in leaking the information, and another two have been stood down, pending an investigation.
Deputy opposition leader Jeremy Hanson said he was concerned about the revelations it was the union and he said he would write to the integrity commissioner calling for a broader investigation across the health service.
He said the government also needed to be arm's length from any investigation.
"The integrity commissioner is in a very good position to look at how this has played out," Mr Hanson said.
"If this is something that's happened elsewhere in the health service... [those] are the sort of assurances that we need to know.
"Based on the way this has played out with the minister it's unlikely this is a government that would offer that information if indeed that has been happening."
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