The Discovery of Teesdale - Michael D. C. Rudd
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Confidential patient data lost on Teesdale street
Sep 16, 2008
TEESDALE is at the centre of the latest data loss scandal after a memory stick containing information on hundreds of NHS mental health patients was found by a member of the public in a Barnard Castle street.
The Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Trust, whose jurisdiction Teesdale falls within, said the ‘serious breach of patient confidentiality’ happened after a computer technician, who had been upgrading PCs in Teesdale, failed to delete the information from the portable stick.
Early investigations into the security breach also unveiled that other members of staff at the trust had stored confidential data on their hard drives, contravening trust policies on information security.
The Mercury learned of the latest government blunder after one of the patients’ whose information had been on the stick contacted the newspaper.
The patient, who did not want to be named, said: “It’s distressing that such personal information can be lost like this.
“There have been lots of stories recently about personal data getting lost, but I can’t believe this has happened so close to home.”
The patient, who is from Teesdale, said she found out about the breach of security after being contacted by the trust.
A spokesperson for the trust said as soon as they were alerted to the loss of the memory stick they contacted the 200 ‘service users’ whose personal information was on the device.
Councilor Richard Bell, who is a member of the health scrutiny committee, said: “I am very disappointed in the light of the other data information losses that have happened recently.
“I hope that the health trust will give an adequate explanation for this and assurance that security has been tightened. I think public bodies should be made to ban the use of memory sticks and laptops and that would remove the portable risk.”
A spokesperson for MIND, the mental health charity, said: "Doctors are entrusted with highly personal information, and patients should be able to confide in them safe in the knowledge that their details are fully protected.
“Mental health is a particularly sensitive area, and sadly, some people choose not to disclose a mental health problem to family, friends and employers for fear of stigma and discrimination. Incidents such as these undermine the trust patients place in the people responsible for their care, and action must be taken to ensure this doesn't happen again."
The latest scandal follows recent losses of personal data by the government including the loss of 25m people’s child benefit details last November and, more recently in August, the loss of information on 84,000 criminals in England and Wales.
Martin Barkley, chief executive at the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Trust, said: “Safeguarding patients’ confidential information is of the utmost importance to the trust and we have clear policies and procedures in place to support this.
“There has been a serious breach of these policies and of patient confidentiality. We are very sorry this has happened but grateful that it has been brought to our attention.
“We have already written out to all staff to remind them of their responsibility to safeguard patient information and to follow trust procedure.
“We now need to complete the investigation so that we can learn from this isolated incident and put measures in place to prevent it from happening again.”
Anyone who is concerned about their personal information held by the trust can contact the trust’s helpline on freephone 0800 3280543 (8.00am – 6.00pm).