I’ve reported my friend for an NHS confidentiality breech

Never, ever apologise to people who have such appalling manners they have corrected your spelling.

Pedantry should be a private vice!

We have a Healthboard wide system that holds letters and appointments. So when I contract confidentiality with patients I have to let them know that any healthcare professional will be able to access the letters but I can process them more confidentially if they wish (barring safeguarding measures). So of if I needed to I could access any letter from any healthcare professional in our Healthboard that has processed the letter through the standard procedure and this includes GPs. I could also see all the appointments that person has had or has booked in. I never have because I haven’t needed to.

This is crazy!!

What if you had decided not to continue with the pregnancy for some reason and all your friends were congratulating you!!

The one who accessed your file is so totally in the wrong and I'm amazed your other friends are taking her side, are they honestly ok with this woman nosing through their medical records just because she's bored at lunchtime?? Shocking!!

You definitely need new friends!!

Can you call up the information governance for a follow up? They may update you.

I can't believe that some people are defending her actions and not seeing how serious this is. As for her possibly losing her job and possibly leaving her family in financial hardship, she should have thought about that before accessing confidential information. It is down to her to let her family know why she has lost her job. She has proved herself to be untrustworthy in both her professional and personal life.

I would agree with above poster, unless she was directly managing the clinic or waiting list you were on she has no right to access and tbh even if she was she should not have clicked past name contact details etc. Or if treating declared she knew you to her manager. Obviously the clinic may have given away your pregnancy. As NHS worker we have it drummed into us about GDPR and accessing notes its taken incredibly seriously for good reason. I have a patient with the same name as my husband and once accidentally brought up his details, clicked off it immediately but let our governance team know. They could see i had literally just seen his name address etc, but did write and let him know . He thought it was hilarious as it was nothing I didn't already know! I now triple check every time I go to that patient. I would think if she has.no good reasons and they can find a trali of her accessing other records as well, which is easily done she will loose her job quite rightly, there is no excuse

OP you did the right thing.
She deserves to be fired, nor reprimanded.

God knows whom else she has checked out.
Disgraceful.

I once as a professional accidentally accessed a medical record I had no business seeing - the names were the same and I clicked on the one below the one I wanted on the list. On our system I had to tick a box saying why I accessed it - I put ‘in error’ and then accessed the correct patient’s notes.

I was contacted the same day asking why I had gone on those records. I explained my mistake, and they checked and could see I had immediately gone on to someone else of the same name, that the names were next to each other on the list - and even that I had only been in the wrong records for a matter of seconds.

It really is taken seriously, but I am truly appalled that she thinks she is ok because she is ‘checking on friends’ in some kind of imaginary caring way.

My friend did this but not to me. She's now an ex friend because it's a dreadful thing to do.

She will probably get a final written warning - I think she should have been sacked.

She is NOT “a good NHS nurse” if she’s been accessing her friends’ medical records FFS!

Yes it is. Many dyslexic people have trouble with homophones words such as to,too and two, loose and lose, effect and affect are also problematic. A large proportion of us spell phonetically and rely on spellchecker which often don't pick up on these words due to them being spelled correctly, as they are just not for the word we wanted

I agree. These friends haven’t realised she’s probably looked up their notes as well. You ‘friend’s has committed two offences - 1( looking up notes, and 2) blagging them.

Even if she had come across the news by accident, she still shouldn’t have disclosed it.

She should lose (not loose) her job. If she can’t adhere to a basic confidentiality requirement, and isn’t even ashamed of what she did, she is in the wrong job.

And this just out

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/06/nhs-staff-may-have-illegally-accessed-records-of-nottingham-attack-victims

@BundleOfCookies

If she has potentially done this with other friends, could you pass on the names of mutual female friends who have had babies, to see if there is evidence that she has looked up their records too?

You haven't thought it through. This could be a huge safeguarding risk depending on whose records an unscrupulous person looks at and with whom they gossip.
Medical records could potentially contain information about rape, CSA, incest, anything.

Sorry, but this isn’t about ‘sharing pregnancy news’.

The ‘friend’ looked at records having no idea what she might see, she then shared the information she did find with friends.

What if the OP had had a termination or cancer diagnosis that perhaps she didn’t want to discuss / disclose generally? Although the information found is irrelevant, it’s the breach that is totally wrong.

This is a very serious breach of confidentiality and patients need to be assured that their medical records are private!

The ‘friend’ does not seem to have any grasp on how serious her actions were - which is a very concerning aspect of this scenario .

I work in the NHS, I think what will happen to her depends on how she came across the information, if she had a legitimate reason to access it (e.g. she was booking a clinic and saw your name on the list, so put two and two together) then it will be hard to prove she’s broken any rules, as without any evidence, will be your word against her’s. However, if she’s looking at your records for no legitimate reason it will be apparent when they do an audit of your records, which may take some time, as they may want to see if she’s done this to other people. This is a sackable offence and she’s also broken the law, so is taken very very seriously.

I don’t think it would have been necessarily picked up without a complaint (as others have said) because there are a million reasons as to why someone may access the records of someone who isn’t under their area of care e.g. patient calls the wrong dept to enquire about something/someone enters the wrong hospital number/someone clicks on the wrong patient/staff member calls the wrong dept to enquire about patient etc.

So I would urge anyone who believes someone is accessing their records for no good reason to complain about it, don't assume it will be automatically picked up by an audit or computer system.

Regardless, this woman is so out of line and would be very very aware she could be sacked for this, so she deserves to lose her job.

"What about other proof - eg WhatsApp group chats where they back her up or the messages you referred to in you op where people congratulated you and you asked how they knew?"

@Mnetcurious she really won't need proof, all instances of records access by staff members is tracked in the NHS, the trust should be able to prove she has accessed records by auditing using her employee sign in.

Not only did she look but she told people. Absolutely horrible!. Does she any sense? Also the people against you are terrible, how can they agree with what she dud!. You did Absolutely nothing wrong, she had no right!

Regular spot checks on you? Absolutely disgusting

"I know. I’m just saying I know it’s not nice to have your personal information shared. I’m absolutely not excusing what OPs friend has done. Completely inappropriate and a high breach of trust but I also can’t imagine reporting and having a good friend lose their job, potentially putting them and their family in financial hardship for sharing pregnancy news early. I would potentially end the friendship If I felt very strongly about it but no I probably wouldn’t report it."

@Motherofdragons24 but it's not just news of the pregnancy is it? Her friend has admitted to checking up on other people that she knows. A person's medical history is a very private document and anyone working in the NHS knows how important privacy and discretion should be. The friend deserves to lose her job if she is found in breach of her employment conditions.

They do in most Trusts but only after the investigation is fully completed. There should be a letter from the Chief Exec (granted, the CE won't personally write the letter but it will come on their stationery) informing the OP of the outcome, but not the details, of the investigations and with a formal apology. And probably some information about the appeal process.

I might agree with you about giving her benefit of the doubt except her reaction to OP confronting her was to shrug her shoulders like it was no big deal. If she'd apologised profusely and promised to never do anything like it again, I'd say she deserved a second chance. But her attitude suggested she'd do it again and again regardless of OP having a stern word.

What about other proof - eg WhatsApp group chats where they back her up or the messages you referred to in you op where people congratulated you and you asked how they knew?