133 Molesworth Street
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
T+64 4 496 2000
Amy S Van Wey Lovatt
By email:
[FYI request #12922 email]
Ref:
H202003922
Dear Ms Van Wey Lovatt
Partial transfer of your request for information to all district health boards (DHBs)
Thank you for your request of 29 May 2020 under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act)
for:
“Incident reporting by DHB - standards, requirements, policies
Request 1:
Please describe the best practice for a DHB to document any unlawful acts, such as
acts which are consistent with crimes under the Crimes Act, or incidents, which have
the potential to cause harm to a patient or DHB employee (i.e., internal reports, eye-
witness sworn statements, CCTV footage, etc.).
Request 2:
To which agency or agencies must DHB’s report unlawful acts, such as acts which
are consistent with crimes under the Crimes Act, which are committed by either DHB
employees, members of the DHB governance, or members of the public.
Request 3:
To which agency or agencies must DHB’s report incidents, which have the potential
to cause harm to a patient or DHB employee.
Request 4:
Impersonation of a physician is fraud, and thus a crime. Further, the impersonation of
a physician in a medical setting would be consistent with an incident which has the
potential to cause harm to a patient. I request, for each DHB, the total number of
incidents involving an allegation that a member of the public had impersonated a
physician, between 1 May 2019 and 31 August 2019, and in the event there were
such incidents reported, the date of the alleged incident, the names of the agencies
the incidents were reported to, and a description of the evidence provided to support
the allegation of the incident.
Request 5:
Unauthorised access, by a patient, to secure and restricted areas which require
employee key-card access, such as surgical theatres and pathology laboratories,
where diagnostic and biohazardous material are kept, would be an incident which
has the potential to cause harm to a patient or DHB employee. Such an incident has
the potential to be a crime, if it involved breaking and entering or theft of an employee
133 Molesworth Street
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
T+64 4 496 2000
key-card. I request, for each DHB, the total number of incidents involving an
allegation that a member of the public had gained unauthorised access to a surgical
theatre or pathology laboratory, between 1 May 2019 and 13 August 2019, and in the
event there were such incidents reported, the date of the alleged incident, the names
of the agencies the incidents were reported to, and a description of the evidence
provided to support the allegation of the incident.
Request 6:
According to the MoH standards and legal precedent, patients’ medical records are
confidential and access is restricted to the purpose in which they were obtained (for
the care and treatment of the patient) and may only be accessed with the patients
consent. Please refer to HISO 10064 and the Health Information Privacy Code 1994].
MoH standards (HISO 10029:2015 Health Information Security Framework) requires
DHB’s to take steps to protect against re-routing or interception of private (email)
communications, as the interception of private communications is a crime under
section 216B of the Crimes Act. I request, for each DHB, the total number of
incidents involving an allegation that a DHB employee had engaged in the
interception of private email communications between a patient and a DHB
employee, between 1 January 2019 and 29 May 2020, and in the event there were
such incidents reported, the dates of the incidents, the names of the agencies the
incidents were reported to, a description of the evidence provided to support the
allegation of the incident, and the outcome of the investigation into the incidents (e.g.,
District or High Court Case Number, Privacy Commissioner ruling, Ombudsman
decision, Human Rights Tribunal ruling, etc.).”
The Ministry of Health (the Ministry) does not hold information pertaining to parts 4, 5 and 6
of your request. However, I have been advised that this information is more aligned with the
functions of the DHBs.
As a result, I have decided to partially transfer these parts of your request to the DHBs in
accordance with section 14(b)(i ) of the Act. You can expect a response from the DHBs in
due course.
Please note, the Ministry will be responding to parts 1, 2 and 3 of your request as soon as
reasonably practicable.
You have the right, under section 28 of the Act, to ask the Ombudsman to review my
decision to transfer your request for information.
Yours sincerely
Zoe Royden
Manager (Acting), OIA Services Office of the Director-General
