ICO demands data protection "culture change" in health service after five more incidents

July 1, 2011

The Information Commissioner has demanded a culture change in the health service in relation to data protection, warning that it “needs to do more” to keep patients’ personal information secure.

The watchdog said five more health organisations had given undertakings after being found to have breached the Data Protection Act.

The latest incidents include:

Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust misplacing 29 patient records in February 2011 after a member of staff took them home to update a training log and then lost the records. The information, which included sensitive personal data relating to operations carried out on patients, was subsequently recovered. Ipswich Hospital agreed to implement mandatory data protection training for all relevant staff by 30 June 2011.
Dunelm Medical Practice in Durham sending discharge letters about two patients’ routine operations to the wrong recipient. A member of staff had failed to spot that they had entered the recipients’ fax number incorrectly. The third party organisation which received the faxes immediately alerted County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust before destroying both documents. According to the ICO, Dunelm Medical Practice has agreed to send Electronic Discharge Letters by secure email and only fax them in exceptional circumstances. It will also programme the fax machine with the numbers for the regional branches to better protect the information in future.

East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Basildon and Thurrock NHS Trust have also recently signed undertakings.

The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, said: “The health service holds some of the most sensitive personal information of any sector in the UK. Millions of records are constantly being accessed and we appreciate that there will be occasions where human error occurs.

“But recent incidents such as the loss of laptops at NHS North Central London - which we are currently investigating - suggest that the security of data remains a systemic problem.

Graham said that while the policies and procedures may already be in place, “the fact is that they are not being followed on the ground”.

He added: “Health workers wouldn’t dream of discussing patient information openly with friends and yet they continue to put information on unencrypted memory sticks or fax it to the wrong number.

“The sector needs to bring about a culture change so that staff give more consideration to how they store and disclose data. Complying with the law needn’t be a day-to-day burden if effective measures are built in and then become second nature.”

The Information Commissioner said the watchdog was working with Connecting for Health to identify how it could support the health service to tackle these issues. The ICO’s guidance for health organisations is available here.

The ICO is yet to levy a monetary penalty on a health organisation. This contrasts with the local government sector, where four councils have been ordered to pay a combined £370,000 over the last year.