CORONERS ACT — LEGAL ADVICE
282. Hon NICK GOIRAN to the parliamentary secretary
representing the Attorney General:
I refer to changes in the
interpretation of the Coroners Act 1996 following advice in 2020 from the State
Solicitor's Office to the Office of the State Coroner that all
information contained in a coronial file, including post-mortem examination
results, is confidential and belongs to the State Coroner and, as a result, is
no longer routinely provided to hospitals.
(1) Who provided that advice and on
what date?
(2) Which health service providers
were consulted prior to the advice being given?
(3) Will the Attorney General table
that advice?
(4) On what date did the
Solicitor-General provide advice on this issue?
(5) Does the
State Coroner inform medical practitioners if the cause of death was related to
a secondary condition or clinical incident arising from their provision of
health care?
Hon KYLE
McGINN replied:
I thank the member for some notice
of the question. I answer on behalf of the parliamentary secretary representing
the Attorney General. The following answer has been provided to me by the
Attorney General.
(1)–(3) Legal advice is
subject to legal professional privilege.
(4) The
Solicitor-General was not consulted to provide advice and did not provide any
advice on this matter.
(5) The State
Coroner does not provide information to medical practitioners on the question
of whether the cause of death was related to a secondary condition or clinical
incident arising from their provision of health care unless there is consent
from the senior next of kin to do so. The exception is where the coroner seeks
a report or a statement from a medical practitioner in order to investigate the
death to make the findings under section 25(1) of the Coroners Act 1996. In
such cases the medical practitioner will be provided
with relevant information for the purposes of preparing his/her report or
statement for the coroner and this may include information about a relevant
secondary condition or clinical incident arising from their provision of health
care.