Privacy guidelines

We will protect your privacy and will not share your information without your consent unless it is necessary for safety reasons or the law requires us to.

Our policies, procedures and the law control what we do with your personal information.

Staff will keep your name, contact details, mental health information and support needs on your consumer file.

Other details such as your needs assessment, individual service plan and self-rated mental health measure are also kept on your file.

Your support worker records each time they have contact with you. These are kept as file notes in our secure database or in secure databases provided by the funding body for the service.

All consumer information is treated with respect and policies and procedures are in place to ensure your personal information is secure, up to date and only used for the purposes for which it was collected.

Neami’s privacy policy and practices meet the legal obligations of the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and the 13 Australian Privacy Principles.

Neami staff:

• Will tell you what personal information we need to collect, why we need it and how this information will be used, stored and disposed of when required.
• Will only pass on information to others with your permission or when legal or serious safety concerns require us to.
• Will make your client records available to you on request and will correct anything that you find is out of date or wrong.
• Will use de-identified data for monitoring, research and evaluation to improve the overall quality of our services.

If you believe that Neami has not handled your personal information correctly, you can raise your concerns with the service or directly with Neami’s Complaints Officer and give us time (30 days) to resolve your issue.

If you are still not satisfied with the way Neami has handled your issue you can contact or write to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and request them to investigate your concerns.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner can be contacted by email at enquiries@oaic.gov.au or telephone 1300 363 992.