Access to health records

cohealth receives a variety of subpoenas requiring: 

• the production of a document or thing
• attendance at Court to give evidence
• attendance at Court to give evidence and produce documents.

As a result of the significant number of subpoenas received, please ensure that you have included the relevant information below to enable cohealth to promptly comply. 

Production of health records

A subpoena requiring production of health records should include: 

• client’s full name
• date of birth
• which cohealth site or service they attended
• the date or timeframe when the client attended the service. 

Current services offered are available on the cohealth website. 

The subpoena should be addressed to:  

The Proper Officer 

Address: Location client attended.

Locations can be found on the cohealth website. 

Attendance to give evidence 

A subpoena requiring a staff member to attend court to give evidence should include: 

• client’s full name
• date of birth
• which cohealth service the client attended
• the date or timeframe when the client attended the service
• hearing date and venue
• direct contact details of the main contact on the matter. 

The subpoena should be addressed to the staff member, at their usual cohealth work location. It should be delivered in person to the staff member at their usual cohealth work location, during business hours. 

Before issuing a subpoena, we suggest you confirm that the individual is still employed at cohealth by contacting the Privacy Officer via the cohealth Feedback team on 03 9448 6102 or emailing privacy@cohealth.org.au.  

If your subpoena involves staff working in Family Violence, please speak to the privacy officer before issuing any subpoenas. 

Please respect the clinician’s time and take all reasonable steps to minimise disruption to the clinical workplace, which will be caused by their absence to attend court. 

Contact the staff member the week prior to the hearing, and again on the day prior to the hearing, and confirm that attendance is still required. This avoids appointments attending Court (or the Tribunal) unnecessarily, for example, where the case has been adjourned or has settled. 

Please note that you may include a requirement to produce the staff member’s own notes. Should you require extensive notes, you will need to arrange a separate subpoena. 

Witness Fees may be charged for staff members’ time, invoices will be issued after any appearance depending on the duration of the appearance.  

How to service a Subpoena or Summons

When serving a subpoena on cohealth, ensure you provide reasonable notice (preferably two weeks), to enable cohealth to comply. 

In order to comply and be processed by cohealth, the subpoena must be: 

• Stamped by the Court; 
• Addressed correctly;  
• Include sufficient conduct money; and 
• Delivered to cohealth by 4pm on or before the last date of service 

If permitted by the applicable court rules, you can serve a subpoena or summons for production of documents via email to: privacy@cohealth.org.au 

If you would like to provide electronic deposit of conduct fees, please contact the privacy officer via phone or email.   

Requests from the Coroner can continue to be faxed directly to the site.

All requests for client records must be made in writing and include a signed consent from the client or their legal guardian, completed within the 12 months prior to the request.  

Requests should clearly state the following information:  

• client’s full name
• date of birth
• which cohealth service they attended
• the date or timeframe when the client attended the service (if requesting records that may be in archive). 

Where possible, cohealth will confirm consent with the client prior to actioning the request.  

cohealth will charge in line with the current period’s fees listed on the Health Complaint Commissioners (HCC) website. A list of the current period’s fees is available on the HCC’s website. If you would like to request that fees be waved, please include this as part of your request letter.  

A subpoena requiring production of employee records should include: 

• the employee’s full name; 
• cohealth sites and services at which the employee worked; and 
• the relevant period of employment. 

The subpoena should be addressed to: 

Director, People and Culture  

cohealth  

You can deliver this to:

• by mail to any cohealth site 
• in person to any cohealth site