Medical records dumbed in landfill site

You would think everyone who handles medical records new the importance of keeping the info confidential. It seems that nobody has told Bolton PCT how to do this.

It has been discovered that they dumbed the medical info of over 3,000 patients in the normal rubish bin and they were found at a landfill site. The records were disposed of because they were being copied into a computer.

Making the data ’secure’ would have been easy. All you need to do is instruct anyone of those pesky admin staff people like me cant stand that they should shred the paper copy as soon as they have put the info into the computer. The fact that the records were being read by others that would not have needed to gain access to them if they were not being transferred to a computer only goes to show how much more electronic records are shared more than those kept purely on paper.

Be careful of the comment from Connecting for Health who claim electronic records will be more secure. The new system they are planning will make more info available to far more people and that will make it less secure

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7255463.stm

http://www.bolton.nhs.uk/