Confidential NHS data has been found in a skip, a garden, the
boot of a car, and the street in the past two years.
A catalogue of
data-losses by the UK's 10 Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs)
was released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Incidents include patient information being sent to the wrong
patients in the West Midlands, after a post-inserting machine put
two letters into each envelope. An entire GP practice system was
stolen in the East of England.
The information was released in response to a Freedom of
Information request from Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary
Norman Lamb. He obtained a list of "serious untoward incidents"
involving data loss from every Strategic Health Authoritie, either
through an FOI request or directly from their website.
Lamb is calling on the government to formally abandon its plans
for a national database of patient records.
He said, "We already know from the information commissioner that
the NHS is among the worst offenders for data loss, reporting as
many incidents as the entire private sector.
"There must be a fundamental re-examination of how the NHS deals
with personal data."
More FOI disclosures about the NHS >>