Received someone else’s doctors letter in the post

of course you dont message her
you can legitimately complain though

I'm not at all. If the person who receives it isn't a decent person then of course this can happen.

You are describing a scam that has nothing to do with someone receiving the wrong letter. You’re connection unrelated things

You can just contact the surgery and let them know, but I believe you can also report a data breach online without you contacting the woman and worrying her. Likewise, I’d put it in an email to the surgery so it’s in writing, which should give them extra motivation to report themselves for a data breach and therefore will mean they have to contact her. She can then choose how she plays it with the surgery.

It could very well be - they have some of your personal information and they use it to get more personal information out of you - it literally says it in the article.

That’s not related to someone receiving your test results by mistake.

And just to hammer the point home - spear-phishing: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/spear-phishing-are-scammers-targeting-you-aniez8I9I22s

They will use the limited information they have to assume legitimacy as an NHS body and get you to disclose further details because they rely on you thinking: "Oh they know my NHS number, DOB and address, so they must be the real deal": https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/watch-out-for-fake-nhs-cold-calls-a33Vv5D124xJ

They’re private, but they’re also just test results- what are you going to do with them even if you do have negative intentions?!

I agree that not being able to sleep because another person saw your test results is hugely over anxious and must impact your life in all sorts of ways.

it’s not a big deal, the hospital / doctors will report it and follow a short process. It’s just one of those things. I don’t know why the introduction of GDPR made everyone think they were suddenly data police.

I would also want to know OP, and I wouldn’t trust the doctor or hospital to tell her

I wouldn't message her personally. I would just let the doctors know. I would be upset if I knew my private medical information had been sent to someone else, and finding out about it from the person who had it would only make me feel worse, particularly if it was something I didn't want to broadcast.
Mistakes do happen though. I once received someone's power of attorney information in the post. I contacted the relevant authority and they just said to send it back, but I forgot. Turned out to be a neighbour, but I didn't know who they were at the time.

The same thing happened to me once, getting another patient’s letter in my envelope. As the other patient lived quite close to me, I took it to her house and handed it over, explaining how I came by it.

We had a letter and some pre-op meds posted out to us the other day, somehow they had the wrong address for this lady but the letter had all her other information on it. The lady at the hospital was very grateful when I called to say it had been sent in error but I highly doubt they’ll tell her they cocked up.

I had this a couple of years ago, I moved back to Germany and asked my GP practice for a copy of my records.
As I had consented, they came by email, started reading and suddenly thought "Hang on a minute, that does not sound right". Went back to the top of the page only to find I had received another patients record. Same family name, but different first name, DOB and address.
I immediately informed the GP practice and, after not receiving a response, the ICO.
GP said "they had dealt with matters appropriately" and the ICO was happy that the issue had been "properly addressed".
For my part, I'm not so confident this was really the case - but what can I do. I only hope, they really contacted the other patient to let her know.

Yes, legally the other patient and the ICO must be informed of the data breach regarding their records.
If you are concerned that this will be swept under the carpet then I'd be inclined to inform the ICO direct.

If you honestly think that people that people with negative intentions wouldn't insert themselves into your life despite being strangers then I'm sorry that's a bit naive. You might like to believe it but it's literally what scammers do isn't it? Equating it to caring about you is quite a stretch - you're putting an intention onto someone that you know nothing about and that's actually very dangerous.

As someone who’s had to deal with this in the nhs, the other person will be contacted. A DATIX incident will be completed and it will be dealt with. You won’t be informed of the outcomes, as it is (ironically) confidential, but they should tell you that they are going to follow gdpr and the policy and offer you the chance to raise it as a concern or complaint, but as your data hasn’t been breached there isn’t necessarily a complaint to you to answer and so you’ll just get a fairly short outcome and brief idea of lessons learnt and how they’ll stop it happening in future.

Theres a whole load of gdpr, informing relevant people, directors oversight and all sorts that will happen.

That’s what we do locally.

The person whose data was shared will be contacted, apology issued, process explained and offer for complaint / concern and details provided for that.

NHS duty of candour covers this, it’s all about not covering things up.

It’s a crap thing to happen, but usually human error and leads to conversations about double and triple checking before sending.

A lot of services are moving away from paper and digital only communications will go some way to resolve it.

This happened to me! With smear test results 🫠. The person who received them contacted me on Facebook. The GP could not have been less interested! I was glad she told me, because I don't think the surgery would have.

Any GDPR breach has to be reported to the patient even when it causes distress and, in my opinion, they'd be better not knowing.

Honest answer, if you can’t sleep at the thought of someone else getting your details, seek help. You shouldn’t live your life like that it must be exhausting

I would feel very uncomfortable being contacted like that over something medical as its just so personal. If you report it to the hospital who sent the letter they will send another letter and address the breach

I admit I did once track down someone whose mobile phone bills were being sent to my house. I tried calling the provider but they wouldn't talk to me because I wasn't the account holder. So in the end I found him on Facebook, sent a message, his flat was nearby and address very similar (imagine I'm House 3 Apple Street and he's Flat 3 Apple Court). I stuck them through his door and I presume he sorted it as I didn't receive any more. I wouldn't have messed about with someone's medical info though.

I’m fully aware it’s a data breach and the organisation has a duty to report it and inform the relevant person. But the op contacting her on Facebook is irrelevant to correct procedures and would be viewed by many as intrusive and unwelcome.