Paramedicine Board of Australia v Callen

[2025] QCAT 460

QUEENSLAND CIVIL AND
ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL

CITATION:

Paramedicine Board of Australia v Callen [2025] QCAT 460

PARTIES:

PARAMEDICINE BOARD OF AUSTRALIA

(applicant)

v

BARRY CALLEN

(respondent)

APPLICATION NO/S:

OCR307-23

MATTER TYPE:

Occupational regulation matters

DELIVERED ON:

10 November 2025

HEARING DATE:

On the papers

HEARD AT:

Brisbane

DECISION OF:

Judicial Member Robertson
Assisted by:
Mr B Phipps
Mr M Metcalfe

Ms R Bensted

ORDERS:

IT IS THE DECISION OF THE TRIBUNAL THAT:

1. Pursuant to s 196(1)(b)(ii) of the National Law, the respondent has behaved in a way that constitutes unprofessional conduct.

2. Pursuant to s 196(2)(a) of the National Law, the respondent is reprimanded.

3.     Each party must bear their own costs for the proceedings. 

CATCHWORDS:

PROFESSIONS AND TRADES – HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS – OTHER HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS – where the respondent was a paramedic – where it was alleged that the respondent misused his access to integrated real time software available to paramedics to monitor QAS activities by giving an associate, who was not an authorised user, his access particulars – where it was further alleged that the respondent accessed the software when he was not on shift and without legitimate business reasons – where the respondent has not engaged in the proceedings other than to say he would neither respond to the Board’s submissions nor attend any hearings – whether the conduct constitutes unprofessional conduct – whether the respondent should be reprimanded

Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Queensland)

Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld)

Paramedicine Board of Australia v Reis [2022] QCAT 120

APPEARANCES & REPRESENTATION: This matter was heard and determined on the papers pursuant to s 32 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld)

REASONS FOR DECISION

1. For reasons that will become apparent, it is appropriate that the matter proceed today on the papers as requested by the Paramedicine Board of Australia (‘Board’).

2. Today’s final hearing follows the Board’s filing of an amended referral on 30 July 2025, which omitted allegations three to six in the original referral and substantially amended allegations one and two. 

Background

1. The respondent, Mr Callen, was employed between 16 February 2009 and 4 July 2023 by the Queensland Ambulance Service (‘QAS’).  With the formation of the Board in December 2018, he was required to be registered and so was registered on 28 May 2019.  He surrendered his registration on 1 August 2023 and has evinced an intention not to apply for registration in the future. 

2. The respondent has not filed a response.  However, he has filed a number of submissions.  The amended referral came about as a result of the Board raising in its original submission the possibility that, because the conduct in allegations three to six allegedly occurred prior to the respondent becoming registered with the Board, the Tribunal may lack jurisdiction to determine those four allegations.  The legal issue arises, it is said, in light of a decision of the South Australian Supreme Court of Appeal in March 2025 – Paramedicine Board of Australia v Jackson; Physiotherapy Board of Australia v Smith [2025] SASCA (20 March 2025).

3. The Board has decided that, given the significant lapse of time between now and the alleged conduct the subject of allegations three to six, a pragmatic approach is in the interests of justice, which will finalise the matter, hence the amended referral.  Consequently, there is no longer any need for the Tribunal to resolve the jurisdictional issue.

4. The Board filed the original referral on 12 December 2023.  In an email on 23 May 2024, the respondent indicated that he would neither respond to the Board’s submissions nor attend any hearings.  In that email and in subsequent communications, the respondent adopted what could be described as a two-way bet approach by stating that his response was not an admission of guilt however, he took full responsibility for his actions.

The conduct that is the subject of the amended referral

1. The remaining grounds relate to the respondent’s misuse of his access to integrated real time software available to paramedics to monitor QAS activities.  Between 28 May 2019 and 9 October 2020, Mr Callen provided his QAS username and passwords to an associate, AA, who was not an authorised user, and who improperly accessed patient records on 93 occasions in that period.

2. AA was then Mr Callen’s partner.

3. A police investigation involved an interview with both people who both made relevant admissions.  No charges were laid.  However, Mr Callen was suspended from his work and resigned from the QAS on 4 July 2023.  He made relevant admissions in his submission filed on 19 July 2024.  He says all use of his access particulars by AA was under his supervision. 

4. Allegation two alleges that Mr Callen engaged in professional misconduct or unprofessional conduct in that he accessed the software and viewed incident reports on twenty occasions when he was not on shift and when there was no legitimate business reason for doing so.

5. Initially, his position was that any access to the system when he was not on shift was for general business reasons.  However, after further investigations by the QAS, he resiled from that position, appearing to justify his conduct on the basis that it was always for genuine reasons. 

6. The QAS investigation concluded that any access out of shift times by Mr Callen was not for any genuine business needs.  As the Board notes in its submissions, given that other officers would have been able to access the system to respond to incidents when Mr Callen was not working, it is difficult to justify any legitimate reason for his actions.

Discussion and sanction

1. The Tribunal is comfortably satisfied to the requisite standard that the amended allegations one and two are proved.

2. The Tribunal accepts the Board’s submission that the proved conduct satisfies the definition of unprofessional conduct in s 5 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Queensland) (‘National Law’). 

3. In relation to each ground, the misconduct breached applicable codes of conduct and QAS policy documents.  The respondent’s actions potentially undermine patient privacy, which is a principle embodied in the Board’s code of conduct for health practitioners. 

4. It is a fundamental ethical obligation of all health practitioners to treat any information about patients as confidential.  Mr Callen’s actions breached these obligations as he appears ultimately to reluctantly accept.

5. The case of Paramedicine Board of Australia v Reis [2022] QCAT 120 is comparable, albeit much more serious in that although the misconduct was over a slightly shorter period of time, the practitioner had pleaded guilty to an offence of using a restricted computer without consent, and his motives for doing so were extremely serious and unprofessional. A finding of professional misconduct was made in that case and a reprimand was imposed.

6. The evidence here is unclear as to what the respondent’s motives were in behaving as he did.  Nevertheless, it involved protracted and repeated misuse of sensitive QAS data system containing confidential patient information.  It is fitting that the Tribunal imposes a sanction apt to denounce  that behaviour and to deter others from engaging in similar conduct.  In those circumstances, the orders of the Tribunal are as follows:

7. Pursuant to s 196(1)(b)(ii) of the National Law, the respondent has behaved in a way that constitutes unprofessional conduct.

8. Pursuant to s 196(2)(a) of the National Law, the respondent is reprimanded.

9. Each party must bear their own costs for the proceedings.