When you attend a hospital or facility, we will keep confidential medical records of your personal details, condition, test results and treatments.

You have the right to apply for access to information held in your medical records.

To apply for access to your medical records, speak to your health care team or contact the relevant RTI/IP officer at your hospital or service. If you are unsure who to contact, please phone any of our RTI/IP contacts and we will be able to help you.

When seeking access to your health information, we will ask you to provide evidence of your identity, such as:

• passport
• copy of a certificate or extract from a register of births
• driver’s licence
• if the applicant is a prisoner, a copy of the person’s identity card certified by a corrective services officer.

You will need to provide a certified copy of these documents. If you don’t have any of the listed documents, talk to the HHS about other accepted evidence of identity documents.

If your application cannot be processed through our usual administrative access process, it will generally be referred for processing under the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld).

Accessing other people’s medical records

If you want to access someone else’s records (e.g. a relative), and you do not have or are unable to obtain their consent, you will need to make a Right to Information application.

If you are an agent acting on behalf of someone else (e.g. solicitors accessing information for their client), you may need to provide additional information with your application.  This may include patient consent and evidence of your identity as their agent.