The National Health Service in the UK has admitted that nine separate regions have suffered individual cases of data loss recently. Up to 168,000 records are though to have been lost by NHS trusts across the country, some containing highly confidential clinical records.
The government confirmed that one of the breaches involved the loss of names and addresses of 160,000 children by City and Hackney Primary Care Trust, after a computer disc failed to arrive at its destination at St Leonards Hospital in east London. A further disc, lost by Gloucester Partnership Foundation Trust, consisted of archive records relating to patients treated 40 years ago - none of whom is still alive.
The latest news of data losses across UK government bodies has led to opposition political parties calling for a planned central NHS database to be scrapped.
Speaking to the BBC, health minister Dawn Primarolo said: “What it is really important to stress is how important patient security and confidentiality is and how each of these trusts is moving to deal with this.”
However, exactly what each trust is doing will remain a concern for British citizens who are becoming increasingly jaded with more and more news about the vulnerability of data held by government agencies.
