Government Information Public Access Act (GIPA)

Access to health and medical records

Health and medical records held by public health facilities in NSW, such as your NSW hospital records, are maintained by the NSW Local health districts. To obtain access to your medical or health records from public health facilities, you will need to contact the relevant local health district.

More information about accessing medical records under the Health Records and Information Privacy Act is available from the NSW Information and Privacy Commission.

Information held by the Ministry of Health

There are four ways that information held by the Ministry will be made available:

1. Mandatory release
2. Proactive release
3. Informal request
4. Formal application

Mandatory release

Much of the information held by the Ministry of Health is already publicly available. Resources you may wish to review, which are constantly updated include:

• NSW Health website - Here you will find information about NSW Health, health services, hospitals and hospital performance data as well as a comprehensive list of NSW Health publications, resources and policy documents.
• Agency Information Guide is a guide to the Ministry of Health's organisational structure.
• Disclosure Log is available on the Ministry's website, which lists all formal determinations made by the Ministry of Health under the GIPA Act, along with the document released.
• Government contracts - The Ministry of Health is required by the GIPA Act to record and publish certain information about some contracts with private sector bodies. Part 3, Division 5 of the GIPA Act states that information about contracts worth more than $150,000 between agencies and private sector bodies must be recorded in a register of government contracts. See NSW Ministry of Health contract information or Health Support Services contract information for more.
• Information tabled in Parliament - Information about NSW Health contained in any document tabled in Parliament by or on behalf of NSW Health.

Proactive release

You can ask the Ministry of Health what information it will make available to the public, in addition to the information contained on its website. Under GIPA Act, the Ministry of Health is encouraged to release as much information as possible, in an appropriate way and free of charge (or at the lowest reasonable cost).

Informal request

You can request specific information from the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health will release information without the need for a formal application, unless there are good reasons to require one.

Formal application

This is the last resort, if you haven’t been able to get the information you need in any other way. You can formally request specific information from the Ministry of Health. In limited circumstances, access to information will require a formal access application.