Confidential health letters found dumped in residential Sydney bin

More than 1000 letters discussing confidential health information about hundreds of patients have been found dumped in a bin next to a Sydney apartment block.

A local man discovered a massive heap of letters dumped into a rubbish bin in Ashfield two weeks ago and recognised them as possibly containing confidential information.

He contacted a neighbour who worked in health services, who then called local police to report the discovery.

The letters were from specialists in hospitals around NSW intended to be sent to general practitioners via a transcribing subcontractor called Global Transcription Services.

Most of the more than a thousand letters involved treatment progress reports from specialists at Royal North Shore, Gosford, Dubbo, Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, Northern Cancer Institute, Sharp Neurology, Southside Cancer Care Centre, Strathfield Retina Clinic and the Woolcock Institute.

NSW Health said there was no need to contact individual patients about the potential privacy breach.

"No evidence of a need for immediate clinical intervention or for individual patients to be contacted was found," the department said in a statement.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the person who dumped the letters was a woman with significant mental health problems who was  going through a break-up, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

An external review is now being conducted into transcription procedures.