Letter · Health & Medical Law
Request for access to health records (patient or authorised representative), with state and NZ variants
Letter requesting a patient's own health records under APP 12 and the state health records laws, with variants for NSW, Victoria and New Zealand, response times, fees, refusal rights and complaint routes.
- Kind
- Letter. A letter or email you adapt and send.
- Where it applies
- Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand
- AI use
- Green AI can do most of the drafting. A lawyer still reviews the result.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked against the cited sources on 17 October 2026.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when a patient, or a lawyer or other representative with written authority, wants copies of health records from a private provider or health service. For subpoenas or court process use the court's procedure instead. For public hospitals, check whether a freedom of information route is better.
How AI may be used
AI may draft the request from the client's details; the records that come back are sensitive health information and must be reviewed only in approved, secure tools.
AI may
- Draft the request and covering letter from the client's details and treatment dates.
- Diary the response deadline for the relevant law.
- Once records arrive, index them in an approved secure tool with page numbers.
AI must not
- Must not process the records received in a public or consumer AI tool, or any tool that may train on them.
- Must not send the request without the patient's signed authority.
- Must not summarise records for the client without a lawyer or clinician checking the summary.
The lawyer checks
- The authority is signed and covers the records and period requested.
- The correct law and deadline are applied (organisation, NSW private sector, Victoria, NZ).
- Any fee is checked against the rule that charges must not be excessive and cannot apply to making the request.
- Records received are stored in the matter's secure repository.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Official form
Open the official form. Always use the current version from the issuer.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Health & Medical Law
- Practitioner's response to an Ahpra notification or proposed immediate action
- Patient information and consent form for AI scribes and AI-assisted care
- Memo: is this AI tool regulated software as a medical device?
- Open disclosure follow-up letter after an adverse event (health service)
- Memo assessing a mandatory notification obligation under the National Law
All precedents for Health & Medical Law · Tasks and AI use in this area