Privacy Consent

Every health professional, including general practitioners, medical specialists and allied health professionals, are legally and ethically obliged to treat your health information as confidential. All practices must have privacy policy in place to be compliant with the Privacy Act 1988. The privacy policy sets out how, and why, Dr Andrews collects, stores, and discloses your personal information, and how to contact Dr Andrews if you have any questions about how your personal information is handled or if you would like to access or correct the personal information we hold about you.

These services provided by Dr Andrews include:

  1. Orthopaedic specialist services.

  2. Health care services.

  3. Research.

  4. Medicolegal and injury management.

Dr Andrews’ primary concern is the delivery of quality of health care services, which requires a doctor / patient relationship based on trust and confidentiality. Dr Andrews values the importance of managing your personal information and places high regard on the confidentiality of your personal information. It is necessary to collect personal information from you to provide adequate health care services.

Dr Andrews collects personal information such as identifying and contact information including name, gender, date of birth, age, email address and phone numbers, health history, including family history, information about your activities, which will include lifestyle interests, ethnic background and finally any sensitive information including information about your general health.

Dr Andrews collects your personal information directly from you, when you register with his practice and as a part of the consultation process. There may also be occasions when you provide your personal information to the practice by email or in a hard copy medical health care file. Information will also be collected from third parties, including relatives and other health care providers. In these circumstances this could also include a family member, legal guardians and/or persons you have authorised to provide your personal information to us. In these circumstances, this is because it is not reasonable or practical to collect your personal information directly from you. In those cases, we have taken reasonable steps to ensure that the third parties have obtained your consent to disclose your personal information to us which may include, but is not limited the event your health is potentially at risk and your personal information is needed to be provided for emergency medical treatment.

Dr Andrews collects and uses your personal information for administrative purposes in running the medical practice, billing practices, including compliance with Medicare and Health Insurance Commission requirements, disclosing to others involved in your health care treatment, including treating doctors and specialists outside this medical practice. This may occur through referral to other doctors, or for medical tests and in the reports of medical results or reports return to us following the referrals and disclosure for research (on a de-identified basis) and quality assurance activities to include individual and community health care and practice management. 

Dr Andrews discloses your personal information to insurers, product devices specialists, and medical representative organisations, professional associations or registration bodies that have a proper interest in the disclosure of your personal and sensitive information, a Workers Compensation body in Australia, contractors and suppliers, a parent, a guardian, holder of an enduring power-of-attorney (or similar authority), or next of kin, whom we may contact in the case in which consent is required or notification is to be given, and where it is not practicable to obtain it from or give it directly to you, and any parties to whom we are authorised or required by law to disclose information.

Dr Andrews only uses your personal information for the purposes that you have provided the information for/or unless one of the following applies:

  • You have consented for Dr Andrews to use your personal information for an alternative or additional purpose.

  • The disclosure of your information via Dr Andrews is reasonably necessary for the enforcement of criminal law, or a law imposing a penalty or sanction, or for the protection of public revenue.

  • The disclosure of your information by Dr Andrews will prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to somebody’s life or health.

  • Dr Andrews is required or authorised by law to disclose your information for another purpose.

More generally, Dr Andrews might disclose your personal information to:

  • Third-party service providers engaged by Dr Andrews to assist with conducting our business activities, such as IT services, management of our promotions, website hosting, marketing, research including analytic services, and secure payment services.

  • Business partners associated with the provision of our health care services.

  • Entities such as government bodies, regulators, law enforcement agency and other parties where authorised or required by law, and other parties to which are legally required to disclose your personal information.

  • Parties identified at the time are collecting your personal information or as otherwise authorised by you from time to time.

  • Third parties involved in research with Dr Andrews.

To ensure the data quality and security of your personal information, Dr Andrews will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information which we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up to date.

Dr Andrews will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

You have a right to access your personal information held about you, and you can also request that we correct the personal information if it is inaccurate or out of date. Dr Andrews will allow you to have access to your personal information or will make the requested change/s unless there is a reason under law to refuse access or refuse to make the requested change/s. Where these reasons to refuse access exist, we will advise you of those reasons at the time you make your request.

If you request that your personal information is changed, and if Dr Andrews does not agree to change your personal information, we will enclose your statement of the requested changes with your personal information. If you would like to obtain access or to request changes to your personal information, you can ask our Privacy Officer (details below).


We will respond to your request within a reasonable time, after your request is received. Dr Andrews can charge a reasonable fee for the time it costs of collating, preparing, and photocopying materials for you. If you request access to your personal information a quote will be provided to you in advance. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, or if Dr Andrews does not agree to provide you with the access to your personal information, or if you have a complaint about the information handling practices, you can contact our Privacy Officer on the details below.

In particular, if you wish to make a complaint about how we have handled your personal information, you should forward a written complaint to our Privacy Officer. We will respond in writing within 30 days of receipt of a complaint. If you are not satisfied with our decision, you can contact us to discuss your concerns. If the complaint remains unresolved you have the option to notify the Office of the Australian Information Commission (OAIC). Contact details can be found OAIC’s website www.oaic.gov.au

You can contact us by:

  • Letter, marked attention to:

Privacy Officer
Dr Steve Andrews Rooms
Brisbane Hand and Upper Limb Clinic
Level 9 259 Wickham Terrace
Brisbane QLD 4000