When you are under the care of mental health services, you have several rights under the law.

Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights 1996

Your health information is private

Agreeing to treatment – informed consent

Enduring power of attorney

Making a complaint about services

Making a complaint about other things
 

Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights 1996

All users of health services, including mental health services, have rights under the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights.

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.

Your health information is private

The Privacy Act 1993 is the law that sets out general rules about the protection of personal information.

The Health Information Privacy Code 1994 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 clinical files. The Privacy Code requires every health service to develop its own privacy policy. Privacy officers are employed in each district health board to ensure the Privacy Code is being followed and to respond to complaints about breaches of the code.

As a general rule, your health information, such as your diagnosis or anything else written in your file, should 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
• you are considered unable to make a decision
• there is a serious threat to safety if the information is not passed on.

Be clear with your mental health worker about who you do or don’t want to get your personal information.

You have a right to read and correct information in your file. When you make a request, the mental health service should respond as soon as practicable (and no longer than 20 working days). If it’s urgent, you need to explain why.

There are cases where you might not be able to see the information on your file, for example, if there is another person’s personal information in your file that the person doesn’t want shared with you.

If you are given your file to read, make sure you have support, as most people don’t like what they read about themselves.

If you want a correction made to your records, but the mental health service doesn’t agree, they have to attach a statement saying what you wanted changed and tell other people who need to know.

Agreeing to treatment – 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. An exception to this is if you are subject to compulsory assessment or treatment under the Mental Health Act where you lose the right to consent but retain the right to be informed.

In specialist mental health services, informed consent involves more than you passively agreeing to treatment. Your doctor 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 involve family
• setting your own goals for recovery.

Enduring power of attorney

If you think you require more protection than what an advance directive will achieve, an enduring power of attorney lets you choose someone (such as a partner, close friend or relative) to make decisions for you or to act on your behalf if you lose your capacity.

The person you choose must be over 20 and they should know you well enough to understand what you would want in a particular situation.

if you are considering giving someone enduring power of attorney, talk to a lawyer to make sure you are fully informed about what it means.

If you have one, we recommend you attach a copy of your advance directive to the enduring power of attorney document.

Read our information for family, whānau on an enduring power of attorney.

Making a complaint about services

You have the right to make a complaint at any time.

Some people are afraid to complain because they think the staff will punish them in some way. Mental health workers should never react in this way.

Making a complaint can be a long and stressful process, so make sure you have plenty of support from trusted mental health workers, family members or an advocate.

Some organisations and individuals are better than others at dealing with complaints.

The complaints process:

• Talk or write directly to the person or organisation involved – if you feel uncomfortable or unable to do this, you can take a friend or relative with you as support. You can also take an advocate with you – this includes those from the Health and Disability Commission or a peer advocate. If you are uncomfortable talking to the mental health worker concerned, you can go straight to the person’s manager.
• Every mental health service has a documented complaints procedure – request a copy to find out the correct way to make a complaint about their service.
• Follow the complaints procedure – if you feel that your complaint has still not been adequately dealt with, you should contact the manager of the service and outline your complaint and expectations to them. If the manager has already been involved in your first complaint, then ask for the name of the person that the manager reports to and address your concerns to them.
• If you cannot get a satisfactory outcome – you can lodge a formal complaint with the Health and Disability Commissioner. They also offer a free Health and Disability Advocate support service to help people making complaints.

Making a complaint about other things

If your complaint is not about mental health and addiction services, you might like to consider some other avenues:

• Contact your local community law centre for general legal advice.
• Contact the Police to complain about a crime.,
• Contact the Privacy Commissioner if your complaint relates to privacy matters.
• Contact the Human Rights Commission if your complaint is about a human rights or discrimination issue, for example housing, justice, employment or benefit payments.