Qld hospital data: Legislative issues denying patients timely responses

Queenslanders are being delayed from receiving medical records because of inconsistencies and outdated legislation, while prisoners were waiting longer average times.

Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane’s Woolloongabba

Queenslanders are being delayed from receiving medical records because of inconsistencies and outdated legislation, while prisoners were waiting longer average times.

An Office of the Information Commissioner report outlines the time it takes to process thousands of administration records annually through the Metro South and West Moreton hospital and health services, the bulk of which are medical records.

The report found that Queenslanders were unnecessarily delayed when making requests through the Metro South Hospital Health Service, which encompasses five hospitals including Princess Alexandra and Logan, because they needed to make an application for each hospital they needed information from.

Sixty-eight per cent of applicants across the health services were able to get their records within a month, while 16 per cent had to wait longer than three months.

Policies were also inconsistent because it relied on a 20 year document which did not recognise newer legislation, while staff workload was also blamed for delays.

Princess Alexandra was the worst at Metro South, with 37 per cent of applications completed within a month and 39 per cent of applicants waiting more than three months.

The report said the health service was standardising its policies.

West Moreton Hospital and Health Service’s hospitals across Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, and Scenic Rim showed better results, but the report found it needed to improve communication with prison services.

Prisoner requests took longer but most were still concluded within the month.

“West Moreton HHS reports it is taking steps to improve timeliness of prisoner requests,

such as reviewing the information resource for prisoners, training frontline staff and

recruiting for a new management position that could explore and implement

improvements,” the report said.

Legally represented applicants also received faster responses, with 77 per cent of administrative access requests completed within a within, compared to 58 per cent of those that were self-represented, which could also factor into prisoner applications.