I’ve reported my friend for an NHS confidentiality breech

I’ve been sitting on my hands trying not to correct the OP 🫣. But yea, it is very annoying. They are totally different words!

LOSE! It's LOSE! Not loose.

NHS worker here.

You absolutely did the right thing here. People have to trust that their information is confidential or there is a risk of people not seeking help. We all need to be able to be 100% honest with our healthcare professionals and know that the information won’t go further.

Karen needs to learn. She will have been to mandatory training that will have absolutely covered this. Awful behaviour.

They may not tell you much. Ironically, due to confidentiality issues.

You did the right thing. You have stopped her messing with other people’s confidential
information. I salute you.

You have done exactly the right thing, I volunteer with the NHS and even as a volunteer our mandatory training (which is the same online courses that staff complete) is very clear on confidentiality and that information is only to be accessed if necessary for you to carry out your work.

She will lose her job, but she is not worthy of the trust that has been placed in her and is unfit to continue in any role handling other people’s private medical information. Your other friends should be ashamed of themselves, it is not you that has done anything wrong.

As we have established in a thread recently, each Trust is slightly different.

Where I work, Karen would be called into a private room with her line manager and an HR officer. The HR officer would be there was a witness. Karen would be suspended immediately on full pay pending an investigation. She would be escorted to her car. The investigation should be conducted within 21 working days. The investigation would over run by about 3 weeks and by the end of April Karen would be invited to a disciplinary panel. During this it would become very obvious that she would be about to be sacked by a dismissing officer (usually a head of division or chief of service) for gross misconduct. She would be escorted off the premises and her access to site revoked.

As an aside, If I were Karen’s union rep I’d immediately demand a break in proceedings once I realised the above, and then hand over the letter if resignation I’d have insisted she write. Then she can honestly say ‘no’ when asked if she had ever been dismissed from a role for misconduct.

your friend did a terrible thing.

I have no sympathy for her that's a massive breach of trust both in a professional capacity as an employee and privy to sensitive information, but also in a personal capacity as a friend she's massively overstepped and that's a very odd and controlling thing to do.

I don't think she's any friend of yours. Not only has she snooped on you for her own means, she's shared really private information about you to other people and taken away your ability to share your news with people you care about yourself and surprise them with it. All incredibly selfish. And if your friends can't see how out of line she is and aren't speaking to you then I'd seriously question their boundaries. Time for new friends op. I'd be sending a group message to everyone individually expressly calling out their behaviour.

It is only her actions that have caused her job to be at risk. You should not feel guilty or be blamed for the consequences of her actions.

Even if you hadn't reported it eventually someone else would or internal audits would have noticed.

You were absolutely right to report it. Imagine if she'd done similar to another person regarding more private information (for example abuse, or an STD or mental health issues)

Or even with another pregnancy, what if she did that to a friend who was considering termination and the friend then felt they couldn't do it because of everyone finding out. The consequences of sharing medical information are so serious, which is why it's gross misconduct. Yes you may have cost her her job (hopefully), however she's not fit to be in that job and you may have avoided someone else experiencing a horrible situation.

I cant believe your mutual friends are siding with her, what if she looked up some really personal info about them? I just dont understand what she was thinking by telling all your friends. How strange, and what you have done is definitely not worse!

Do not feel guilty, she's getting what she deserves.

When I was at secondary school, the mum of a boy in our year was a practice nurse. She once told her son that a friend of mine had been on that day. Of course, from that, her sixteen year old son extrapolated correctly that she was going on the pill and told everyone at school. I would never have gone near the nurse after that (thankfully never had to) but with hindsight she should absolutely have complained.

It is not worse. What she has done is totally unacceptable, and is a sackable offence. There is no defence for this... not at all.

And you are doing right by the other women whose details she’s shared.

She will be sacked. Our secretary, who had worked in dept 20 + years, was called in for an HR interview and instantly dismissed for similar. I suspect ICT are looking at what records she’s been accessing to build a case to dismiss.

Forgot to say, to those friends who have sided with her - when they have the chance to think this through they will feel deeply uncomfortable at her accessing their medical records for a browse.

I would be furious. That being said in my organisation accessing a medical file without cause (very easy to trace) is very likely to result in dismissal for gross misconduct and would be noted on any future reference. I would probably have been furious and warned that there should be no further access and if there was then I would report.

Your mutual friends have stopped talking to you!? Seriously? Your friends are shit. This happened in my friendship group and we all stopped talking to the cheeky cow going through people’s medical records. Why has everyone decided that this is fine for her to do? And she told everyone your pregnancy news… i’d have to send a very stern and quite hurt group message about their behaviour toward you.

Stop feeling guilty! She should lose her job and it's her own fault if that happens. What she did was so unforgivably wrong I would not want her as a friend anymore. And if your other friends are taking her side you are better off without them too.
Congratulations on your pregnancy, I hope all goes well. You will soon have a bunch of new friends through parenting groups.

My mum worked for the NHS. A colleague in her workplace found out through records that someone she knew was pregnant and told someone else. It got back to the pregnant woman. She complained about the breach and the colleague lost her job. This is going back about 20 years so things may be different now.

I work for the NHS and this would be considered a serious breach of confidentiality. Information governance will be able to audit her access on the various systems. She will definitely be disciplined if not dismissed. She will have been made well aware of this in her mandatory training. Accessing your own medical record is a potentially sackable offence let alone others.