A lawyer working on a potential class action against a Department of Veterans’ Affairs medicines review program says patients did not realise their health data were being shared with researchers.

The Veterans’ Medicines Advice and Therapeutic Education Service (Veterans’ MATES) was shut down by the Federal Government last week after the department’s independent Human Research Ethics Committee withdrew ethics approval.

Melbourne-based law firm Gordon Legal has now called on the 300,000 veterans who participated in the program under its opt-out consent process to express interest in a class action lawsuit.

Senior associate Seb O’Meara said it was too early to say whether a class action was likely to eventuate, but there were “certainly the potential ingredients”.