To think this isn’t in compliance with data protection?!

[Whaaaaat1]

My mother (early 60’s) had an operation at a private hospital last July. She suffered a number of cardiac arrests which I believe weren’t handled correctly (she wasn’t linked up to any machinery which would have alerted the team to the fact she’d passed out. Not sure of the medical terminology) and it happened when I was visiting so if I hadn’t seen it happen and alerted the staff I think the outcome would have been unthinkable.
She ended up being transferred to an NHS hospital and they were excellent. Thankfully she’s doing really well now. When she first came out of hospital we received a letter from the private hospital to say an “investigation was being carried out into the care and treatment she received”. We waited to hear more and me and my sister were frankly too busy caring for her to enquire and just waited to hear more from them.

Fast forward to now. They wrote to us in October to say the investigation was complete and that they’d be in touch with the details. We made several attempts to contact them to receive details and heard nothing back. They then wrote to say the case had been transferred to an internal panel for review. Tried to contact them several more times - we don’t even know what the investigation is about - but nothing.

Surely this is a serious breach of data privacy with my mums medical records not to mention the shady nature of the ‘investigation’. Aibu to think this isn’t correct protocol and Aibu to be v concerned here??!!

I should add that I spoke to a lady on the phone at the hospital on Monday and she apologised saying they were really sorry. I asked for all details to be emailed to me but she hasn’t sent them through!!! At my wits end. We don’t live near the hospital as my mum moved 200 miles to live near to my sister and I following her op.

Ask for a copy of their complaints procedure & follow it to the letter. If they haven’t followed it report to the ombudsman. Tell them you are doing this.

When you make the complaint write about facts - the tendency is to be emotional but this dilutes the attention they’ll give.

Good luck

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with your mum.
It doesn't sound like a data breach at all. Without knowing all the details it sounds like they recognised that there were deficiencies in your mums care and they were investigating how and why they happened to prevent them happening again.

If she had emailed you all the details then that would be a breach of dp for sure! Unless you have power of attorney or proxy type arrangement of course.
There are too many variables to understand if any dp laws have been broken. The hospital can and and should work to understand what happened and went wrong. The info shared with the panel may have been anonymised. Like I said - too many variables to be able to answer.
Sorry to hear about your mum

What you consent for operations etc now you have to tick whether details can be shared in regards to your care, so I don’t think it’s a data breech

You need to be more specific.

You refer to 'we' and 'us' regarding the letters and communications, the information should be addressed to your mother and nobody else, and only she should be reading it unless she has given advance, explicit permission for other people to be allowed access to it.

It is a data breach if they are writing to you about your mother without her express permission, or unless you have a lasting power of attorney for healthcare. If you don't have either of those things written and signed, then they shouldn't be communicating with you at all.

I can’t see what the data breach could possibly be. They’re investigating if anything has gone wrong, and there will be several people involved to track any errors. An internal review is normal. But they should let involved parties know. But that might mean your mum, not you. Also, when you say “us”, who do you mean? Your mum? You? Did the hospital flag the issue in the first place, or did you?

Discussing anything with you or anyone that isn't the patient (your mum) is a breach in data protection and confidentiality. It's also very unlikely they would/could share their findings or details until the full investigation and review has taken place. I know it must be frustrating but sharing half findings with your mum wouldn't help, and I'd be surprised if they'd discuss it with you over the phone.

Put a subject access request in to the hospitals requesting all medical notes and everything and anything to do with the investigation.
The have to provide it, you will need your mums consent.
They are supposed to redact 3rd party information out of the records but you should still see enough that you can work out what's going on.
It's free, they have to comply.
I would also recommend a compliant too.

Unless your mother is assessed as not having mental capacity to make decisions regarding her health and care and she has specifically allocated to you power of attorney there would be no reason for you to be enquiring on her behalf. Can you instead support her to find out for herself what is going on?

Hello,

the Health Service Ombudsman won't investigate complaints about private healthcare, unless the NHS commissions it. However, ISCAS might.

When I phoned them many months ago my mum was sat next to me and gave her permission to speak with me. She’s quite vulnerable so naturally I have shouldered a lot of responsibility. Come to think of it, they’ve never actually challenged speaking with me on the rare occasions I have actually spoken to someone about this. We personally have a suspicion someone at the HNS hospital complained. She was transferred in an appalling state and the nurses openly said to us that she’d really been through the mill.

My concern is that if I request information they will destroy evidence at their end. Eg it only occurred to us that they didn’t issue any discharge notes either.

Appreciate that I appear complacent but she was hanging on to life by a thread at the private hospital and desperately needed to be transferred and the experience was unbelievably stressful.