This appeared last week:
Bid to give police access to real-time S8 script data
Patient information would help them identify 'criminal entrepreneurs'
6th June 2018
Patient information contained in the upcoming national real-time script monitoring system would be handed to police investigators under a proposal from the criminal intelligence agency.
The system, which will alert doctors about to prescribe S8 drugs of previous scripts, has long been seen as the key to stopping doctor-shoppers and reducing the misuse of addictive medicines.
The Federal Government announced funding for a national system in July last year.
However, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), a Federal Government agency that investigates organised crime, has told the TGA that investigators should have access to its contents, which will include about three million patient records.
The commission says this would help police identify “criminal entrepreneurs” who divert prescription opioids to sell, as well as “complicit” doctors and pharmacists.
“Law enforcement agencies should have access to this system to enable them to identify misuse and exploitation of the prescription system,” the agency wrote in its submission to a TGA consultation on tackling opioid misuse.
“The market is most commonly supplied by criminal entrepreneurs or motivated individuals, including persons who are long-term users of various opioids.
“Law enforcement access … would permit agencies to identify individuals who are obtaining an unusually high number of prescription opioids.”
The Government has not yet provided all the details of how the new system will work.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Government has funded its own program, called SafeScript, which will come online later this year and will be mandatory for all doctors, pharmacists and patients in the state from 2020.
A spokesperson has stressed there are no provisions for police to access SafeScript data without a warrant.
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I have to say I believe this proposal is just outrageous and if it were known to be occurring I can imagine all sorts of criminality and violence being provoked to avoid detection.
A warrant requirement would be the minimum safeguard I could live with as well as a really significant probable cause basis as this system is essentially compulsory and so needs such protections.
They really don’t stop coming at you and trying to erode your basic rights and freedoms do they?
David.
Have to agree David this is a step to far. Sadly we will see more and more now we have this secret police super department the government created.
ReplyDeleteIf history is anything to go by the criminal element will find another way to cover their tracts - in the meantime patient privacy goes down the proverbial
ReplyDelete