About statutory medical notifications in Western Australia

There is a mandatory legal requirement that health professionals report certain medical events, conditions and diseases to the Western Australian Department of Health.

The Public Health Act 2016 (external site), the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1911 (external site), the Medicines and Poisons Act 2014 (external site), the Medicines and Poisons Regulations 2016 (external site), the Human Tissue and Transplant Act 1982 and some related regulations and codes of practice (see specific events below) specify the obligations under which health professionals must report the following events, conditions and diseases:

• Acute rheumatic fever
• Addiction to drugs
• Adverse event following immunisation
• Adverse event related to the supply of processed donor human milk
• Adverse event related to dispensing of processed donor human milk
• Anaesthetic deaths
• Cancer
• Cervical cancer testing (external site)
• Death of a woman as a result of pregnancy or child birth
• Developmental anomalies
• Infectious diseases and related conditions
• Lead poisoning
• Mental health (unexpected deaths, serious incidents, application of delegation) (external site)
• Midwife reporting of birth events / cases attended
• Perinatal and infant deaths
• Prescribing a stimulant medication
• Termination of pregnancy

Why mandatory reporting is important

Medical practitioners are a key source of timely information about a range of public health issues, including outbreaks of communicable disease.

This information is vital in assisting the Department of Health (Western Australia) to monitor medical events and develop appropriate health responses and policies, both in the short and long term.

Prompt and appropriate reporting allows the prevention and alleviation of communicable and non-communicable disease processes through:

• monitoring of changes in the incidence of communicable diseases and the identification of emerging disease
• prompt investigation, contact tracing and treatment of communicable diseases
• early identification of disease outbreaks such as food-borne diseases that require urgent public health intervention
• monitoring of patterns of prescribing of drugs of addiction
• monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of health programs such as cancer screening, cancer treatment programs, infectious disease control programs and certain clinical procedures
• identification of risk factors and areas of need in relation to particular types of medical events or conditions
• planning of services in relation to key public health issues.

Statutory authorisations

Some state legislation specifies the requirement for authorisation (e.g. for prescribing Schedule 8 medicines) to be obtained prior to particular medical actions.

More information

• Office of the Chief Health Officer
  Phone: 6373 3902