All users of health services, including mental health services, have rights under the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights 1996. These include the right to:

• respect
• fair treatment
• dignity and independence
• proper standards of care
• effective communication
• information
• decide about treatment and care
• a support person of your choice
• decide about involvement in health teaching and research
• make complaints

 
Informed Consent

The Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights states that all health providers must inform you of the benefits and side effects of the treatments they offer you and tell you of other possible treatments. Once they have given you this information, they need to get your consent before they treat you. The only exception to this is if you are subject to assessment or compulsory treatment under the Mental Health Act where you lose the right to consent, but retain the right to be informed.

In mental health services, informed consent involves more than just passively agreeing to treatment. Your psychiatrist and other mental health workers should actively involve you as an equal in all decisions about your treatment. This includes:

• Sharing your clinical notes with you and enabling you to correct or add to them
• Jointly developing a plan for your treatment including what should happen if you have a crisis
• Letting you decide which family members, if any, you want to be involved
• Setting your own goals for recovery

 
The Privacy Act 1993

The Privacy Act is the law that sets out general rules about the protection of personal information. The Health Information Privacy Code is based on the Privacy Act and sets out additional rules for the collection, storage, use, disclosure and access to personal health information such as medical files.

Your health information, such as your diagnosis or anything else written in your file, will not be given to anyone else without your permission. But there are some exceptions to this, for instance when another agency or your family need your personal information to care for you, when you are considered unable to make a decision, or when there is a serious threat to safety if the information is not passed on.

You have a right to read and correct the information in your file. However, there may be other people's personal information in your file that that person doesn't want shared with you, or your psychiatrist may think the information in your file could put your mental health at risk. In these cases you might not be able to see the information on your file.


Family Rights

Family involvement in the treatment of a person suffering from mental illness is beneficial to providing support and has been shown to improve the effectiveness of treatments.

There is nothing in the Privacy Act to prohibit family members providing information to mental health services regarding a family member, and nothing to prevent services receiving such unsolicited information and taking action based on it. However, services may choose to verify information obtained in this way before taking action.

Additionally, under the Mental Health Act, there is a legal requirement for families to be consulted. If there are still concerns about the level of treatment received by the person who is at risk, the family member should contact the Mental Health Service and pursue the matter with them.


Making a Complaint

You have the right to make a complaint if you believe your rights or privacy have been breached. Every mental health service has its own complaints process. They must let you know what the process is.  Some people are afraid to complain because they think the staff will punish them in some way for it. Mental health workers are not permitted to react in this way.

You could contact your local health advocate to support and advise you If you are not happy with the way the service has responded to your complaint you can approach the Health and Disability Commissioner's office or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner - if you believe your complaint comes under their jurisdictions. They will usually encourage you to take your complaint directly to the service first.  See more information about this here.