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Accessing Health Information

If you are or have been a patient/client of Capital & Coast DHB you have a right to ask and be given access to any personal health information. Simply fill in an Information Request Form.

We can refuse your request, but only for very limited reasons which we would explain at the time.

Correcting information

If you think that the information we hold is inaccurate, you are entitled to ask for it to be corrected.

Except for clearly factual information (such as your name, date of birth, ethnicity) you may be invited to provide a statement of the correction sought. This statement will be attached to your file. Our Privacy Officer can help you to compose this statement, if you wish.

Accessing another person’s health information

We usually require the patient's/client's authorisation before we can release information to you and the request form includes a place for the patient's signature to indicate that we are authorised to disclose the information.

We may be able to release the information even if we do not have this authorisation, but only if we are permitted to do so under Rule 11 of the Health Information Privacy Code.

If you are requesting health information without the patient's authorisation, please tell us why authorisation cannot be supplied.

• Deceased patients: If the person whose information you want has been deceased for less than 20 years, the legal representative (the person dealing with the estate) must give written authorisation before we can release information. Please complete the Request form and attach a copy of the signed written authorisation from that person before sending to Patient Information Services.
• Children: If you are the parent of a child under 16, you do not have an automatic right to access your child's health information, but the information will be disclosed to you if you are acting as your child's representative. Because we have a responsibility to your child as well as to you, on some occasions we may ask you about your reasons for accessing your child's information.

If you are specific about the information you want, we can respond more quickly to your request. The law allows 20 working days to process your request.

For more information contact our Patient Information Officer:

Wellington: (04) 385 5999 ext 6503
Kenepuru: (04) 237 0179 ext 7202

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