Ministry of Health search 'just fishing', lawyer says

A search warrant allowing the Ministry of Health to seize about 30,000 patient files from an Auckland GP's office was a "fishing exercise" based on incomplete and inaccurate information, the doctor's lawyer old the Court of Appeal today.

The doctor, Judith Gill, is appealing a judicial review that upheld the ministry's search warrant.

Her practice, Auckland Metro Doctors and Travelcare, was raided by ministry officials and police in November 2008 as part of a fraud investigation.

Dr Gill was suspected of incorrectly enrolling casual patients, such as travellers, in order to receive extra funding.

Thousands of files, both paper and electronic, were removed from the practice and examined by senior ministry officials according to audit protocols.

A month later, the investigation was suspended when Dr Gill sought an interim injunction to lodge the files with the High Court.

Defence counsel Rod Hooker today said there were a number of errors in the application and use of the warrant, including an inaccurate affidavit by ministry audit and compliance senior investigator Rebecca Rolls.

Ms Rolls' statement was misleading and would have impacted on the court registrar's decision to issue the warrant, he said.

"The registrar had to act on the information provided," he said.

In her affidavit, Ms Rolls said there was a "disturbing pattern" of transient people being registered with the practice, making it eligible for additional government funding.

Mr Hooker also took issue with the scope of the warrant, the seizure of the files and ministry officials' access to confidential patient information.

He presented the court with a list of conditions that he said should have been included in the warrant, such as employing an independent doctor to "sift through" the files and determine what was relevant to the investigation.

"The appropriate way to mediate the blunt decision of yes and no is to impose conditions," he said.

For the crown Anna Adams said the practice's enrolment forms contained enough clinical and biographical information for Dr Gill to accurately determine a patient's eligibility for enrolment.

She described the defence case as a "sweeping challenge" not consistent with legislation, ministry protocols or the views of Dr Gill, who believed the audit should have included all clinical notes.

"The claim that doctor/patient confidentiality should have played a pivotal role in the investigation is not valid," she said.

The appeal continues tomorrow.