Australian Capital Territory

Explanatory Statement

Public Health (Reporting of Notifiable Conditions) Code of Practice 2017 (No 1)

Disallowable Instrument DI2017–211

made under the

Public Health Act 1997, s 133 (Codes of Practice)

Part 6 of the Public Health Act 1997 (the Act) establishes the regulatory framework for the monitoring and investigation of notifiable conditions so that public health action may be carried out in order to minimise the adverse public health effects of such conditions.
Division 6.2 of the Act (subsections 102-105) requires certain individuals including Doctors, Authorised Nurse Practitioners, Pathologists, persons in charge of Hospitals and other responsible people to inform the Chief Health Officer if they have reasonable grounds to believe that a patient has, or may have, a notifiable condition. 

A notification under the Act needs to be made in accordance with the applicable code of practice. This instrument repeals the Public Health (Reporting of Notifiable Conditions) Code of Practice 2006 and will be replaced by the Public Health (Reporting of Notifiable Conditions) Code of Practice 2017 to allow for updates including grouping of conditions according to notification requirements and amendments to the notifiable conditions listing including the addition of some conditions and the removal of others.

The first two sections of the code of practice remain largely unchanged and address the obligation to report notifiable conditions and details who is obliged to report. 

The section 3 of the code of practice details notification requirements. The required notification methods and timeframes have been updated to reflect two groupings based on conditions that require immediate notification and conditions that require notification within 5 days of diagnosis.  
  
Section 4 and 5 describe the public health response to notifications and issues related to privacy and disclosure of information. This is largely unchanged from section 3 and 4 of the previous code of practice.  

Section 6 provides an explanation of the definitions used in the code of practice and remains largely unchanged from section 5 in the previous code of practice. 

Appendix 1 lists the conditions that are notifiable. This has been updated since the previous code of practice and now includes some new conditions and the removal of some conditions that were previously listed.