An Otago Daily Times complaint to the Ombudsman has led to new general principles being established to assess Official Information Act requests about health practitioners' complaint history.
In his decision, released this morning, Ombudsman Professor Ron Paterson said the general principles would guide the Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) and District Health Boards (DHBs) in responding to OIA requests.
The principles come almost three-and-a-half years after the ODT complained to the Ombudsman about the HDC's refusal to release the complaint history against a midwife, citing privacy of the midwife.
While that refusal was upheld by Prof Paterson, he said it was timely to reconsider the approach taken by Ombudsmen to such requests "in light of the growing recognition of the need for more transparency in the health sector''.
The Ombudsman "periodically'' received complaints about similar decisions by the HDC and DHBs, he said.
"Both HDC and DHBs generally refuse such requests, invoking the privacy interest of the health practitioner as a good reason to withhold the information ... The traditional approach has been to accept that the practitioner has a privacy interest in their own complaint history; that withholding is necessary to protect the practitioner from reputational or other harm from disclosure; and that the public interest in disclosure does not outweigh the individual privacy interest.''
Prof Paterson said those cases went "to the heart'' of one of the purposes of the OIA - protecting official information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the preservation of personal privacy.
"It is timely to reconsider the approach taken by Ombudsmen to requests for a health practitioner's complaint history, in light of the growing recognition of the need for more transparency in the health sector and having regard to another of the purposes of the OIA, 'to increase progressively the availability of official information to the people of New Zealand'.''
Prof Paterson did not accept the co-regulatory roles of the HDC and the relevant responsible authority, for example, the Midwifery Council, meant public interest in public safety could effectively be discounted and therefore complaint history should not be disclosed under the OIA.
"There is a significant public interest in the public being able to access information about: a) complaints made to a statutory agency, such as HDC, given its high profile and statutory role in assessing and investigating complaint against health practitioners; and b) the outcome of HDC's handling of a complaint.''
Included in the new general principles were four general public interest factors which "may heighten'' the strength of public interest in disclosure.
They included the accountability of health practitioners and providers of health services - and the complaint-handling agency.
"The oversight of these agencies [HDC and regulatory bodies] is vital in addressing the public interest in patient safety and practitioner accountability.
"However, there is also a public interest in promoting the accountability of the agency that received the complaint for the performance of its functions in assessing and investigating that complaint and ensuring appropriate remedial action is taken.
"Other public benefits may accrue from greater transparency in this area, including possible incentives for practitioners to improve and maintain service standards and to take appropriate action to resolve a complaint, and enabling people to make an informed choice before engaging the services of a practitioner.''
The general principles state a "blanket approach'' to withholding practitioner complaint histories on privacy grounds "is not supported by the OIA'' and, in certain circumstances, there may be a public interest in "lifting the veil'' on complaint histories, sufficient to outweigh individual privacy interests.
