Privacy and Confidentiality Policy
1 Policy
Royal Freemasons Ltd will use all reasonable efforts to protect the privacy of individuals' personal information and to comply with the obligations imposed by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act), the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), the Aged Care Act and the Aged Care Principles.
This policy applies to all staff (including contracted agency staff) and volunteers.
Royal Freemasons will only collect personal information by lawful and fair means and will only collect personal information that is necessary for one or more of the organisation's functions or activities.
If it is reasonable and practicable to do so, Royal Freemasons will collect personal information about an individual only from that individual.
In meeting our obligations with respect to the privacy of our customers we acknowledge that people with vision or hearing impairments and those of culturally and linguistically diverse people may require special consideration.
2 Purpose Of Policy
The purpose and scope of this policy (and its supporting procedure) is to:
- ensure personal information is managed in an open and transparent way;
- protect the privacy of personal information including Health Information of clients, residents and staff;
- provide for the fair collection and handling of personal information;
- ensure that personal information collected by Royal Freemasons is used and disclosed for relevant purposes only;
- regulate the access to and correction of personal information; and
- ensure the confidentiality of personal information through appropriate storage and security.
3 Guardianship And Powers Of Attorney
Royal Freemasons recognizes that consumers of its services may choose to have another person act on their behalf as regards financial, medical and/or lifestyle decisions. Accordingly, Royal Freemasons recognizes:
- A general power of attorney whereby someone is appointed to act on someone's behalf usually for a specific period of time such as during a holiday.
- An enduring power of attorney (financial) where someone is appointed for the making of legal and financial decisions such as the signing of a legal document, selling property or doing banking in case someone is unable to make these decisions at some time in the future.
- An enduring power of attorney (medical treatment) where someone is appointed to make medical decisions on a person's behalf, such as agreeing or refusing treatment, in case someone is unable to make those decisions at some point in the future.
- An enduring power of guardianship whereby someone is appointed to make day-to-day lifestyle decisions on a persons behalf, such as where they live and health care issues, in case they are unable to make those decisions for themselves at some time in the future.
- An Advanced Care Directive whereby someone has specified in a document instructions that consent to, or refuse, specified medical treatments and that articulate care and lifestyle preferences in anticipating future events or scenarios. Advance care directives have legal status and are intended to support a person's previously articulated preferences to be upheld when they are not competent or capable of making informed decisions.
Royal Freemasons requires appropriately witnessed statutory declarations for all such arrangements and will maintain a copy on file. These are also subject to the Privacy Act 1988 and Australian Privacy Principles.
Reference Sources:
Privacy Act 1988
Australian Privacy Principles
Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 effective 12 March 2014
Privacy Collection Statement
Aged Care Act 1997
Aged Care Principles
Privacy Procedure
Clinical Record Management Policy
Clinical Record Management Procedure
Independence and Advocacy Policy
