Privacy policy

The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity handles personal information in accordance with the confidentiality provisions outlined in section 42 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008:

  1. A member of the Council or of any sub-committee or any person employed or engaged by the Council or any employee in the Department made available to the Council for the purposes of carrying out its functions under section 42(1)(iv) shall not except to the extent necessary to perform those functions or to provide information in accordance with section 37 or 41, either directly or indirectly make a record of or divulge or communicate to any person any information that is gained by or conveyed to him by reason of his office, employment or engagement or make use of the information for any purpose other than the performance of those functions.
  2. A member of the Council or of any sub-committee or any person employed or engaged by the Council or any employee in the Department made available to the Council shall not be required—
    1. to produce before any court or tribunal or any board, agency or other person any document that has come into the person's possession or under the person's control in the performance of the functions of the prescribed Consultative Council; or
    2. to divulge or communicate to any court or tribunal or any board, agency or other person any matter or thing that has come under the person's notice in the performance of the functions of the prescribed Consultative Council.

The Act also states that Council may for the purpose of performing its functions request a health service provider or a pathology service provider to provide information to the Council, and a health service provider or pathology service provided to whom a request is made is authorised to provide the information requested to the Council. Therefore individual consent is not required in order to provide relevant information to the Council.

In return, the Council is obliged under the same Act to protect the confidentiality of this information, which involves not publishing identifying information, and not releasing information to any other party except in the limited circumstances prescribed in the Act. In addition, strict security arrangements apply to information held by the Council. The foremost consideration is that the release of data will not endanger the confidentiality of the information.