Greater access to women's medical records proposed

3.00pm - By SUE EDEN

A committee of MPs has decided to allow evaluators of the cervical screening programme unlimited access to women's medical records.

Opening up access to women's primary health records was a recommendation of British cervical screening expert Euphemia McGoogan, who evaluated the screening programme following the 2001 Gisborne cancer inquiry.

However, the health select committee's move has concerned Green MP Sue Kedgley who said today the proposal undermined privacy of personal health information.

The select committee has been considering the Health (Screening Programmes) Amendment Bill, which will implement several recommendations from the ministerial inquiry into the under-reporting of cervical smear abnormalities in Gisborne.

In its report, which was tabled in Parliament today, the committee said the bill as introduced provided for screening programme evaluators to access relevant information about individual women on the register held by hospitals or laboratories.

Additional consent was required to access primary health care records.

However, health committee chairwoman Steve Chadwick today said the committee recommended that consent process be removed.

Ms Kedgley said the proposal to allow access to women's sensitive medical records without their consent alarmed her.

"It undermines the confidentiality, and therefore the basis of trust, in the GP-patient relationship," she said.

"It provides a precedent for further undermining the privacy of personal health information in New Zealand."

Ms Kedgley said many consumer groups had expressed concern about allowing health records to be accessed without patient consent.

"Under the amendments, sensitive records on sexually transmitted infections, terminations or sexual abuse could be accessed by screening programme evaluators," Ms Kedgley said.

There was a danger the amendments could provoke a backlash against the National Cervical Screening Programme, and a reduction of the women enrolled on the programme, she said.

Under the bill, women are automatically enrolled on the cervical screening programme once they have a smear test or colposcopic examination.

However, women can "opt off" the programme at any time, under the legislation.

Ms Kedgley said the Green Party preferred that women be able to choose whether to "opt on" the programme.

The majority of the committee believed that without automatic enrolment on the screening programme, it could not achieve its aims of decreasing the incidence of cervical cancer in New Zealand, the report said.

- NZPA