Parents want to see health files

A family group has attacked plans to allow children as young as 14 to stop their parents from accessing their personal electronic health records.

Patients will be given the option of signing up for the electronic records from July in one of the Gillard Government's key health reforms.

The records are designed to keep details of a patient's medical history together, making it easier for GPs, specialists and other health workers to share information, see past treatments and drug prescriptions and potentially reduce medical errors.

Patients will control how much information is shared and who it is shared with.

Under the plan, when a child turns 14, they will be given control of their records and can deny their parent or guardian access to the file. When they turn 18, the parent will automatically lose access.

But Australian Family Association spokeswoman Terri Kelleher said parents had a right to know about the health of their child.

"It is just another blow to parental authority," she said. "It's clear that teenagers need their family and guidance from their parents. When something goes wrong, who is always blamed? The parents."

Consumer Health Forum chief Carol Bennett said the issue of parental oversight had sparked intense debate among members.

She said 14 was a logical age to give children control of their records because that was the age they could get their own Medicare card.

Children could already get treated by doctors, such as being prescribed the pill, without parental knowledge.

As proposed, some information the patient may not want to share - such as an abortion - could be permanently deleted. But Ms Bennett said all information should be kept on file but easily able to be hidden because it could one day be relevant when a patient needed treatment.

She also warned the Government needed to make electronic health records an opt-out system - where patients needed to say they did not want a record - instead of the opt-in system being proposed.

A spokeswoman for Acting Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the Government had decided on its access rules for teenagers following extensive consultation with stakeholders and interest groups.