An inactive patient file can still matter to future care, a complaint or a legal claim. Keeping it indefinitely also carries privacy and security risks.

For Australian doctors and practice managers, a defensible retention policy starts with the organisation holding the record, the applicable jurisdiction and the type of care recorded. Those distinctions determine how long adult and child records stay, what prevents disposal, and how paper and electronic records can be destroyed safely.

How long must a doctor keep medical records?

There is no single Australian retention period for every doctor or hospital. Seven years for adult records and retention to age 25 for childhood information are familiar starting points. They are legal requirements in particular settings, with different wording and triggers. Public hospitals and licensed private facilities can have substantially longer periods.

Three layers shape the answer:

• Privacy law: private health service providers holding health information are covered by the Privacy Act 1988, including small practices. State and territory public hospitals generally sit under their own regimes. See the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's (OAIC) health-provider coverage and public-sector boundaries.
• Retention authority: state health-records legislation, facility licensing rules and public-sector disposal schedules set specific requirements. The holder and record class matter as much as the state.
• Professional obligations: the Medical Board's code of conduct expects doctors to retain records for the legally required period and destroy them securely when no longer required. It does not create a national seven-year rule.

Australian Privacy Principle (APP) 11 requires reasonable security safeguards. It also requires reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify personal information when it is no longer needed for an authorised purpose, unless retention is required by Australian law or a court or tribunal order. Commonwealth records have a separate exception. These APP 11 duties do not supply a fixed clinical-record retention period.

Private-practice retention periods by jurisdiction

The table distinguishes general health-records legislation from professional guidance. Its ordinary-record periods do not override specialised laws, facility requirements or a valid hold.

Where no specific legal minimum governs an ordinary private-practice record, Avant's medical-defence guidance recommends keeping the complete adult record for at least seven years from the last entry, and a record whose last entry was made while the patient was under 18 until they turn, or would have turned, 25. This is professional guidance, not a nationwide statute. A later telephone consult or recorded result can be a later entry, so the last face-to-face visit is not always the relevant date.

Licensed private hospitals and day-procedure centres

In Queensland, the information management standard requires clinical records to be retained for ten years after the last clinical attendance or last medico-legal action, whichever is later. Minors' clinical records and obstetric records have a ten-year period from the child attaining 18, taking retention to age 28. Separate provisions cover patients with limited decision-making capacity and assisted reproductive technology records. This facility standard is not the rule for every Queensland general practitioner (GP).

In Tasmania, Schedule 1, clause 3 of the facility licensing regulations requires non-maternity adult records to be kept for seven years from last separation. Non-maternity records for patients under 18 at last separation stay until the patient attains, or would have attained, 25. The patient register must be kept indefinitely. Maternity records fall outside those ordinary adult and child provisions.

How long do public hospitals keep medical records?

Public services use approved record classes and retention and disposal authorities. These examples explain why a private-practice timetable cannot simply be copied into a hospital policy.

For NSW, “access” has a defined meaning in GDA17. It includes use directly concerning the patient, such as providing a report or access under subpoena; research or quality-assurance access does not count. Applying the trigger incorrectly can move a disposal date by years.

Western Australia's Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing Act 2024 introduced privacy obligations for covered public entities from 1 July 2026. Those obligations operate alongside recordkeeping requirements; they do not create a private-GP retention timetable.

Calculate a review date, then decide whether disposal is lawful

An age threshold means the patient's age, not that number of years after their last visit. Preserve the authority's exact trigger: last service, last entry, last separation, last access and legal action are different events.

For example:

• NSW adult private-practice record: last health service on 10 October 2026 gives a seven-year minimum ending on 10 October 2033. Other obligations and holds still apply.
• Victorian childhood information: a patient born on 1 July 2009 last receives a health service on 1 July 2031, aged 22. Their 25th birthday is in 2034, but seven years after the last service is in 2038. Ordinary deletion must occur more than seven years after that service, so the birthday alone does not permit it.
• Queensland public minor record: reaching age 28 does not end retention where the ten-year service/legal-action trigger ends later. Both conditions apply.

We recommend treating the calculated date as a disposal-review date, with a separate authorisation decision. A minimum's expiry does not cancel a hold or an ongoing care need. A public record may require archival transfer rather than destruction, while private providers' privacy obligations also limit unnecessary identifiable storage.

When records need longer retention

Complaints, claims, subpoenas and investigations

A medico-legal hold is an instruction to preserve relevant records while a matter requires them. As a risk-assessed practice, pause routine destruction when there is an actual or reasonably anticipated complaint, claim, subpoena, investigation, inquiry, relevant information request or disposal freeze. Refer the matter to the practice's indemnity insurer or lawyer, or the public service's records manager, for a scoped preservation instruction and release decision.

Public authorities can impose explicit restrictions. Tasmania's DA2426 prohibits destruction of relevant records during specified current or expected investigations, inquiries and legal matters, applications under information-access legislation, disposal freezes and native-title claims. Retention continues through the matter and subsequent reviews, appeals or actions. South Australia's destruction requirements also require screening for legal matters, information requests and disposal freezes.

Record the hold's reason, affected files and copies, responsible person and review point. Suspend automated deletion for that scope. A subpoena or complaint does not create one universal indefinite retention period; release must follow the applicable obligation and matter-specific advice.

Specialist records and deceased patients

Obstetric, mental-health, genetic, assisted-reproduction, implant, sexual-assault and child-abuse records can have separate retention classes. So can records involving limited decision-making capacity or particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander record collections. Preserve the relevant class rather than applying an ordinary-record shortcut.

For example, Avant recommends 25 years from the child's birth for obstetric records. That recommendation is different from Queensland's licensed-facility age-28 provision and the longer public-sector classes.

A patient's death does not itself authorise destruction. Some authorities expressly use death as a trigger; others continue the ordinary period. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists' record-retention guidance confirms that death does not cancel a legislated retention period. For childhood records, provisions may use the age the patient would have attained.

What happens when a doctor retires or a practice closes?

Closure, sale, merger or a doctor's death does not erase retention obligations. The Medical Board's practice-closure obligations include advance notice where possible and arrangements for continuing care, including transfer or appropriate management of records under the jurisdiction's law.

Before closure, appoint a lawful record custodian and document:

• the records and formats they will hold, including archives and backups
• secure storage, retrieval arrangements and responsibility for ongoing costs
• the applicable retention schedule and existing holds
• responsibility for responding to requests and authorising eventual disposal
• how patients will learn where their records are held.

Specific obligations vary. ACT practices must publicly advertise a transfer notice 30 days before closing, merging or relocating and notify ACT Health as soon as possible through the practice-closure process. That notice period is not a national rule.

Under Queensland's facility management standard, licensed facilities must transfer records to the incoming licensee on licence transfer. Before ceasing operation, the licensee must submit safekeeping arrangements to the Chief Health Officer for approval. Tasmania's licence-transfer rules require records and the register to pass to the transferee; on surrender or cancellation, the licensee must follow the Secretary's instructions.

Build a usable retention schedule

A retention schedule connects each record category to its authority, trigger and permitted final action. We recommend including the following fields in your practice's records-management policy:

Keep a complete clinical record usable throughout its retention period. Separate paper volumes, attachments and electronic archives still need to be associated with the same patient. Where records from different ages or classes remain in one file, base whole-file disposal on the latest applicable requirement.

Digitisation and authorised disposal are separate decisions. Our medical-record scanning guide addresses conversion; a scanned copy alone does not establish that the paper original may be destroyed.

Secure destruction of paper and electronic records

Authorise disposal only after the applicable retention conditions, continuing needs and holds have been resolved. For public records, follow the approved disposal authority and internal authorisation process. Keep the disposal list protected while records await destruction. De-identification is only an option once any obligation to retain the identifiable record has been satisfied.

Paper records

Under the OAIC's secure-destruction guidance, information is destroyed when it can no longer be retrieved. Ordinary garbage or recycling does not ordinarily satisfy that standard unless the information has already been rendered unreadable through a suitable destruction process, such as shredding or pulping.

As risk-assessed practice controls, use locked destruction containers, restrict handling to authorised people, and maintain custody during collection and transport. Reconcile the authorised batch with contractor evidence of destruction. Include loose correspondence, labels and duplicate printouts containing identifiable information, rather than treating only bound files as sensitive.

Electronic records, devices and supplier-held copies

Deleting a visible file is insufficient if identifiable information remains retrievable. The method depends on the storage medium: sanitise hardware where possible, or irretrievably destroy the information or medium. For cloud or other third-party hardware, the practice must take reasonable steps to establish that instructed destruction occurred.

For a risk-assessed disposal process, map live records, exports, local drives, removable media, printer/copier storage, archives, backups and supplier-held copies. Require the technical provider to document the method, affected copies and completion evidence. These controls support the OAIC's information-security guidance.

Where electronic destruction is technically impossible, the OAIC permits a limited “beyond use” approach. The organisation must be unable and unwilling to use or disclose the information, prevent other entities accessing it, protect it with appropriate security including access controls and logs, and commit to irreversible destruction when possible. An ordinary archive remains accessible and does not meet those conditions.

Keep a protected destruction record

For routine patient records, NSW private providers, Victorian health service providers and ACT record keepers must record destruction. NSW section 25 and Victorian HPP 4.3 specify the person's name; ACT Principle 4.2 requires identification of the consumer. All require the period covered and destruction date. Transfer documentation has separate requirements.

We recommend adding the authority/class, authoriser, method, contractor and certificate or other completion evidence to the disposal register. The register itself contains patient information: secure it and assign it its own retention rule. Retain evidence of the disposal decision without recreating the destroyed clinical record.

Does My Health Record replace the practice's retained record?

No. Section 17 of the My Health Records Act 2012 governs records uploaded to the National Repositories Service and the System Operator's obligations. Its repository retention periods include 30 years after death, or 130 years after birth when the date of death is unknown, subject to cancellation-related destruction provisions. Those periods do not set the retention rule for your original practice record.

Safe retention keeps records available while care or lawful obligations need them. Safe disposal removes information only through an authorised, documented process. Give each record class a clear rule and each disposal batch a responsible owner.

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