21. (1) A health services provider may, at any time after the holding of the notifiable incident disclosure meeting, provide information that is additional to the information which was, in accordance with section 18(2)(a), provided to the patient or relevant person (or both of them) at the notifiable incident disclosure meeting (“additional notifiable information”) that, having regard to—

(a) section 5(2), and

(b) subparagraphs (i) to (iii) of section 14(1)(a),

was not available to the health services provider at the time of the notifiable incident disclosure meeting and which, after that meeting has become available and may, having regard to that additional notifiable information, make an apology.

(2) An additional notifiable information meeting shall, subject to subsection (3), be held in person with the patient or relevant person (or both of them).

(3) A patient or a relevant person (or both of them) may, when requesting the holding of an additional notifiable information meeting, request the provider that the proposed meeting be held other than in person.

(4) A request under subsection (3) may be made orally.

(5) A health services provider shall make arrangements—

(a) to meet with a patient or a relevant person (or both of them), or

(b) where the patient or relevant person has made a request under subsection (3), to hold the meeting other than in person,

for the purpose of providing that additional notifiable information (in this Act referred to as an “additional notifiable information meeting”).

(6) Additional notifiable information and an apology (if any) shall be provided, or made—

(a) by the principal health practitioner who made the open disclosure of the notifiable incident in accordance with section 13,

(b) where, pursuant to section 13(1)(b), the open disclosure of the notifiable incident was made by a health practitioner referred to in section 13(2), by that health practitioner, or

(c) by a health practitioner referred to in subsection (7).

(7) Where additional notifiable information referred to in subsection (1) is to be provided (and an apology, if any, to be made), to a patient or relevant person (or both of them) and the person who, in accordance with section 13, made the open disclosure of the notifiable incident—

(a) is not available to provide that additional notifiable information (or make an apology), or

(b) is otherwise not in a position to provide that information (or make an apology),

that additional notifiable information (and apology, if any), shall be provided, or made, by a health practitioner whom the health services provider considers appropriate.

(8) Nothing in this Act shall operate to prevent an apology being made on behalf of a health services provider at the additional notifiable incident meeting whether an apology was made (or was not made) at the notifiable incident disclosure meeting having regard to the additional notifiable information which has become available since that meeting.

(9) Where a request is made orally under subsection (4), the health services provider shall make a note, in writing, of the request and it shall be kept in the records referred to in section 25.