This Supplementary Order Paper replaces clause 6A of the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill, which proposes an amendment to section 112ZE of the Health Act 1956. Section 112ZE authorises employees of the National Cervical Screening Programme (the NCSP) to retain, access, use, and disclose NCSP information in the course of performing their functions.

The Health Committee recommended that new clause 6A be inserted in the Bill to ensure that section 112ZE does not override the Health (Cervical Screening (Kaitiaki)) Regulations 1995. Regulation 3 of those regulations provides as follows:

• any disclosure by any person of information on or from the NCSP register that enables the identification of any woman, and that is made for the purpose of enabling the compilation and publication of anonymous statistics, needs the prior approval of the National Kaitiaki Group if the information identifies the individual as being Māori:

• any disclosure, use, or publication of information on or from the NCSP register that does not enable the identification of any woman, but identifies the individual as being Māori, needs the prior approval of the Group.

The regulations do not, however, affect the operation of section 22H of the Health Act 1956, which currently enables any person to supply to any other person any information that does not enable the identification of the individual to whom the information relates.

The purpose of this Supplementary Order Paper is to ensure that the regulations operate in a manner that does not—

• prevent employees of the NCSP from carrying out routine data functions and data reporting; or

• adversely affect the quality and effectiveness of the NCSP.

This Supplementary Order Paper amends the Bill to insert the following new subsections in section 112ZE of the Health Act 1956:

• new subsection (3), which requires employees of the NCSP to comply with the regulations before disclosing any identifiable protected information to a person who is not an employee of the NCSP performing functions as an employee of the NCSP:

• new subsection (4), which ensures that employees can carry out specified data functions that are regarded as essential to the effective operation of the NCSP:

• new subsection (5), which defines—

  • identifiable protected information as being information on or from the NCSP register that enables the identification of the individuals to whom the information relates and identifies the individuals as being Māori:

  • National Kaitiaki Group as being the group established under regulation 6 of the Health (Cervical Screening (Kaitiaki)) Regulations 1995:

  • non-identifiable protected information as being information on or from the NCSP register that identifies the individuals to whom the information relates as being Māori, but does not enable the identification of the individuals:

  • regulations as being the Health (Cervical Screening (Kaitiaki)) Regulations 1995:

• new subsection (6), which provides that the prohibition in new subsection (3) does not override the current authority in section 22H of the Health Act 1956.