Tasmanian hospital staff are facing possible disciplinary action for inappropriately accessing medical records, including those of a teenage patient who allegedly stabbed an ED doctor.

Last year, Tasmanian Department of Health secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks issued a warning to state hospital employees after an audit of clinical records suggested that inappropriate access of patient records was “widespread”. 

It was understood that the directive was sparked by a small number of staff attempting to look at the files of a 17-year-old patient who allegedly attacked a senior ED doctor at the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie last April.

The doctor, who was allegedly stabbed multiple times, was airlifted to the Royal Hobart Hospital in a critical but stable condition and survived.