Right to Information No.: RTI202324-107

Right to Information No.: RTI202324-107

Date of Decision:          20 October 2023

Information Requested

An application made pursuant to the Right to Information Act 2009 (‘the Act’), received the Department of Health (“the public authority”) on 27 August 2023 and accepted on 28 August 2023.

The applicant, pursuant to s15(4)(a) of the Act, agreed to grant an extension on the application for assessed disclosure.

The information requested:

Inappropriate / unlawful accessing of patient records by DoH staff. Please could I be provided with statistics on:

- How many DoH staff have been reprimanded for inappropriately accessing patient records in the time listed below? How many have been dismissed? Could these responses please be broken down further into place of work within DoH (i.e. LGH, NWRH, RHH etc).

- Copies of any emails sent by DoH management/executive to ‘all DoH staff’ addressing the practice of inappropriately/unlawfully accessing patient records (such as an email warning against the practice, advising of consequences).

- Internal emails referring to the practice of inappropriate/unlawful accessing of patient records between the Secretary, Director - Office of the Secretary, Chiefs executive of Hospitals North, North West and South, and Chief People Officer, either between themselves or directed to staff lower down the organisational chart (i.e. their subordinates)

Scope change agreed to on 10 October 2023, to:

1. How many DoH staff have been reprimanded for inappropriately accessing patient records?
2. How many DoH staff have been dismissed for inappropriately accessing patient records?
3. How many ED5 process are currently on foot for inappropriately accessing patient records?
   1. For the time period 1 January 2023 to Current 
   2. If possible, broken down to North, Northwest and South. 
4. Emails from Management / Executive addressing inappropriately accessing patient records.
5. Internal emails referring to the practice of inappropriate/unlawful accessing of patient records between the Secretary, Director - Office of the Secretary, Chiefs executive of Hospitals North, North West and South, and Chief People Officer, either between themselves or directed to staff lower down the organisational chart (i.e. their subordinates).

I will respond to each of your requests separately. 

Application Fee

The prescribed application fee was waived in accordance with:

…

s16(2)(ba) (the applicant is a journalist acting in connection with tier professional duties).

Requests 1 to 3 

Decision 

I have decided to release the information to you, in full.

Please see Annexure 1. 

Request 4 

Decision 

I have decided to release the information to you, in full.

Please see Annexure 2. 

Request 5 

Decision 

Pursuant to s10 of the Act (electronic information) the request is refused.

Statement of Reasons

The requested information cannot be produced in its entirety from the Department’s electronic computer system as it is in a format that is not searchable as whole. This task would require more than twenty individual officers searching their emails, it is also noted that Microsoft Outlook is not search friendly in the context of shared / generic email inboxes, and a test of this retrieval process was performed. Further, retrieval and collation of this information would require a substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources.

Section 10 states - 

1. If information is stored in an electronic form, a Minister or public authority may refuse an application under section 13 if –
2. the information cannot be produced using the normal computer hardware and software and technical expertise of the public authority; and
3. producing it would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the public authority from its usual operations, having regard to the factors in Schedule 3.

Having regard to the factors under Schedule 3 of the Act:

Clause 1(a): the terms of the request, especially whether it is of a global kind or a generally expressed request, and in that regard whether the terms of the request offer a sufficiently precise description to permit the public authority or Minister, as a practical matter, to locate the document sought within a reasonable time and with the exercise of reasonable effort.

The request being of a global kind the ability to locate the information cannot be undertaken in a reasonable time without dedication of resources.

Clause (b): whether the demonstrable importance of the document or documents to the applicant might be a factor in determining what in the particular case are a reasonable time and a reasonable effort.

Even though the applicant being a journalist, for a local Newspaper and the information is in connection with a public interest matter, the consideration under Schedule 3 may diminish somewhat due to this fact but I am not convinced that the weight of importance of the application to the applicant outweighs the utilisation of resources in further assessing the application. Also considering the majority of the requested information has been provided in full to the applicant. 

Clause 1(c): more generally whether the request is a reasonably manageable one, giving due, but not conclusive, regard to the size of the public authority or Minister and the extent of its resources available for dealing with applications.

In this context, the resources to be considered are the existing resources required to process the request consistent with attendance to other priorities[1]. It does not refer to the whole of the resources or possible resources it may temporarily be able to obtain to assist in processing the request[2]. Therefore, the resources to be considered are those which would have to be used in:

1. manually identifying the information in the more than twenty officers emails;
2. identifying, locating and collating the information from more than twenty officers emails;
3. deciding whether to grant, refuse or defer access to the information or edited information, including resources to be used in examining the information;
4. extracting the information; and
5. notifying the applicant of any interim or final decision on the request.
   • the number, type and volume of information falling within the scope of the request;

The advice of the information custodian in relation to the application is that it may take the dedication of more than twenty officers approximately one work day to search, extract and collate the information. Such resources cannot be made available for this request without significantly affecting the other work of both the information custodian and the delegated officer under the Act. I further consider that the diversion of resources would be substantial taking account of both the number of other Right to Information requests on hand.

Clause 1(d): the public authority’s or Minister’s estimate as to the number of sources of information affected by the request, and by extension the volume of information and the amount of officer-time, and the salary cost.

The advice from the information custodian is that the request will involve more than twenty officers being dedicated to manually review the database. A test undertaken demonstrated that the task might take more than one working day for each officer to complete this task. Both the amount of officer-time and salary cost in collating and then assessing the information would therefore be considerable and, in my view, an unreasonable diversion of resources.

Clause 1(e): the timelines binding the public authority or Minister.

The applicant has demonstrated generosity in granting an extension of time for the assessment of requests that cover similar subject matter. Even if the applicant granted additional time for assessing this request, the time dedicated to this application would consequently influence the timelines for other requests. 

Clause 1(f): the degree of certainty that can be attached to the estimate that is made as to sources of information affected and hours to be consumed, and in that regard importantly whether there is a real possibility that processing time might exceed to some degree the estimate first made.

The information custodian undertook a test exercise in searching for the information the estimate quoted is likely to be greater.

Clause 1(g): the extent to which the applicant has made other applications to the public authority or Minister in respect of the same or similar information or has made other applications across government in respect of the same or similar information, and the extent to which the present application might have been adequately met by those previous applications.

The applicant in their capacity as journalist for a local newspaper has not submitted other applications.

Clause 1(h): the outcome of negotiations with the applicant in attempting to refine the application or extend the timeframe for processing the application.

Negotiations were entered into, to provide a greater date range in relation to questions 1 and 2, so substantive information could be provided to the applicant. Nevertheless, this does not modify my view that assessing this application would substantially and unreasonable be a diversion of resources.

Clause (i): the extent of the resources available to deal with the specified application.

The information custodian has limited resources available to set aside more than twenty officer to dedicate time in sourcing the information while the delegated officer has existing applications still to be assessed. I also note that the majority of these officers would be senior executive officers of the department. 

I further find that the diversion of resources to provide the information would be unreasonable. While the matters listed in Schedule 3 of the Act must be considered when assessing if the processing of an application would result in a substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources, it is not a complete statement of the matters, which may be relevant. In making this decision, I have therefore considered all the facts and circumstances including:

• the complexity of the request;
• the work time involved in fully processing the request, taking into account that it may not be practicable for those involved in processing the request to concentrate solely on the request, given other work commitments.

For the reasons stated above, I have therefore decided to refuse to provide the information, in accordance with s10 of the Act.

Annexure 1

1. How many DoH staff have been reprimanded for inappropriately accessing patient records?

            Less than 5

2. How many DoH staff have been dismissed for inappropriately accessing patient records?

            Less than 5

3. How many ED5 process are currently on foot for inappropriately accessing patient records?

a. For the time period 1 January 2023 to Current 

            Less than 5

b. If possible, broken down to North, Northwest and South.

North - Less than 5 

South - Less than 5

North West - Less than 5

Annexure 2

Please note: Department wide communications are made through “Reach”, which is the one stop shop for the latest staff news from across the Department including news, an