Policy statement

The Health and Counselling Service provides high quality continuing care for you.

In compliance with privacy legislation* and consistent with maintaining confidentiality and trust with the doctor, counsellor or nurse, we wish to inform you of the following:

• Information collected about you requires your consent.
• Why, how and who we will disclose this information to can be for the following purposes:
• diagnosis and treatment of your problem including communicating with Service staff, specialists and other healthcare providers involved in your care
• health care prevention
• accreditation and Quality Assurance
• billing and collection of professional fees
• for work related medico-legal reasons
• teaching and research.

*as prescribed by the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner – Guidelines on privacy in the Private Health Sector.

We will require your consent to use this information for any of these purposes.

• By writing to your doctor, counsellor or nurse, you can request access to information we hold about you.
• An explanation will be provided to you if legislation prevents certain information from being disclosed to you.
• The notes made by the doctor, nurse or counsellor at the time of your visit are contained in one file and maintained according to privacy regulations in the Health and Counselling Service.
• You can discuss any concerns about how we handle your information, or about the privacy policy from the doctor, counsellor or nurse.