Access to documents held by public hospitals can be gained by the patient under the Freedom of Information Act 1991 . To apply, the patient will need to fill in a form, stating what documents he or she wants. There may be a fee for this. Public hospitals must provide access to personal records [s.12] unless the disclosure of the information would have an adverse effect on the physical or mental health or the emotional state of the applicant [s.26].

Medical records held by private hospitals and doctors are now accessible under the national privacy principles which were introduced by the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 . Under principle 6 a personal has the right to access and even correct medical records where that information was acquired after 21 December 2001 or where information acquired before that date has been used or disclosed by the health care practitioner since 21 December 2001. The practitioner can charge a reasonable cost for providing this information. Access may be denied on several grounds including if provision of the information would pose a serious threat to the life or health of any individual, see national privacy principle 6. Access may also be denied to information acquired before 21 December 2001 and used or disclosed since that date if providing access would place an unreasonable administrative burden on the health organisation or cause the organisation unreasonable expense [Privacy Act 1988 s16C]. Use of information includes amongst other things, compiling information for statistics and research, see national privacy principle 2.

If the information was acquired before the 21 December 2001 and has not been used or disclosed since then, it may be necessary to get a court order. This is because pre 21 December 2001 information that has not been used or disclosed since that date is not subject to the national privacy principles and is actually the property of the doctor or hospital that holds the records Breen v Williams [High Court (1996) 138 A.L.R. 259]. Such discovery proceedings are usually complex and require the assistance of a solicitor experienced in medical negligence claims, see: privacy and freedom of information.