Category: Health Data

Mark Hackett, the Chief Executive of Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust (SUHT), has made a formal commitment to improve data security after the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found SUHT in breach of the Data Protection Act. On 19 October 2009 a member of SUHT staff left an unencrypted laptop containing sensitive personal information in a…

A hospital worker has been suspended amid reports that photos of patients having operations were posted on the social networking site Facebook. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde confirmed it had launched an investigation after an incident at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. Patients were not thought to be identifiable in the images. Read more…

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found Lancashire County Council in breach of the Data Protection Act after social work records containing sensitive personal data relating to several individuals were found in a filing cabinet purchased second-hand by a member of the public. The records were duplicates of documents held in the council’s offices and…

Sarah Hall reports: Hospital records containing highly confidential information about vulnerable patients have been found outside a city supermarket by a member of the public. Personal and clinical details of 11 elderly patients at the new rehabilitation unit at Norwich Community Hospital were on the ward handover sheets, which pass on key health needs of…

A farmer was left “horrified” when personal and intimate details of a potentially fatal pregnancy complication for another woman were dropped through her letterbox. Kay Ashton, 54, said she was “completely bewildered” as to how confidential patient notes from Derriford Hospital’s accident and emergency department, which were meant for a doctor, were sent to her…