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04 May 2011
NHS trusts in London have been responsible for over 900 data breaches in the past three years, NHS Barnet being the worst offender with 187 breaches, according to a Freedom of Information request by The Guardian.
The information, requested of 30 trusts in the capital, found that Chelsea and Westminster Hospital was the second worst organisation with 123 losses, followed by Camden and Islington Foundation Trust with 72.
V3.co.uk contacted Barnet NHS trust for comment on the findings, but had received no reply at the time of publication.
The best performing trusts were the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Trust, NHS Croydon and NHS Havering, all of which suffered no data breaches in the past three years.
Perhaps most worrying is the lack of consistency in the number of breaches over the three years. Barnet had 62 incidents in 2008-09, 80 in 2009-10 and 45 in 2010 to the present day.
Similarly, the total number of breaches went from 255 in 2008-2009, shot up to 366 in 2009-2010 and dropped again to 293 in 2010 until the present day, suggesting that trusts are failing to tackle the issue of data control.
The ICO has regularly taken enforcement action against NHS Trusts for data breaches but has stopped short of imposing fines.
This could be because it would appear to be a waste of time to fine an organisation funded by the taxpayer, or more likely that the breaches in question were not felt to have been serious enough to warrant a financial penalty.
Nevertheless, the watchdog fined two London councils a total of £150,000 earlier this year, and recently revealed that it has a fifth fine in the offing for an unnamed organisation.
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Public sector & secure communications with 3rd parties
Public Sector are now working towards using secure communications with third parties (via e-mail and large file transfer) and have selected Egress Switch for this service. A framework agreement is not in place for all Local Authorities in London and this is the type of thing that the NHS Trusts should also be getting together to achieve so we can reduce these numbers and avoid so much bad publicity............
Posted by: Michelle Chuvas 05 May 2011
Convince the clinical staff
The hardest part of data security in the NHS is convincing the clinical staff that they need to use the more expensive secure media. Many of them, be it consultants or secretarial staff, can be caught with unencryted USB drives despite being warned that it is not legal to use them. They are far more concerned with using the data in the most convenient and cheapest manner; particularly under the present financing regime. With them patient health (which they understand) is more significant than patient privacy.
Posted by: Mike Bassett 04 May 2011