AIBU to try and find out if my medical records have been wrongly accessed?

[Starrynight567]

I can't go into detail as to why I'm asking, as I may out myself, but I'm suspicious that my exH's now wife could've accessed my medical records, and I'm wondering whether I can find out if she has?
I've been separated from exH for 12 years, and he met his wife about ten years ago. In the time that they've been together his wife has caused a lot of trouble and plainly doesn't like the fact her H shares DC's with me, and has tried to ruin the relationship they have with their dad. Also, she can't abide me, even though I've done nothing to her.
So much has gone on that I can't go into, but I'm now at the point of being really concerned that she could've looked through my medical records. She's a nurse, and I know it's strictly prohibited for anyone to access medical records if they have no need to, but I believe she's brazen enough to do it.

I'm wondering how I can go about finding out, even if just to put my mind at rest, and how far back can they check to see who has actually looked at my records do you know? Thanks

Is it possible it's not just plain old fashioned gossip? Particularly if the town is small, or you share a surname / mutual friends with your ex so someone might say "oh are you related to Starrynight567? She was in about XYZ the other day".

A similar thing happened to us (not medical), we originally thought using a computer system but am now fairly certain it was spread by another member of staff.

Probably best to lie down in a dark room and take some deep breaths OP, you are clearly very stressed and uptight.

@Fouradayistoomuch to be fair that poster was accusing her of being psychotic for having a very valid concern. That'd piss me off too

Nah, she’s quite right to be pissed off.

I was speaking generallly

What an phenomenally patronising response.

Of course it's stressful thinking that someone who has an agenda against you might have accessed your most personal medical information. OP has responded pretty reasonably considering that a number of posters have seemed to suggest that she should just accept that (which she absolutely should not) or that she's imagined the entire situation.

I guess it's not impossible that she has a previously undiagnosed mental health disorder that is presenting now in delusionally imagining the whole situation. However her ex's new partner more than likely has the means to access information about her, seems to have motivation and has said things to the children which suggest that she has in fact accessed information she shouldn't have.

If OP has made the whole thing up then there's likely nothing we can say anyway that would make any difference. If she hasn't then she's dealing with a stressful situation caused by another person abusing their professional privelege and she has every right to raise it and have it investigated.

I work in a GP medical Records department, there definitely is an audit trail. Were you seen in her hospital/ Trust? If not, unlikely she had access. If you were seen where she works, she could have accessed some of your information ,not all of your records. but could one of her colleagues mentioned you to her? As in "oh, your dp's ex was here for so and so.." Which, again is a breach of confidentiality but much harder to prove. If she was mentioning to your dc something that no one else knows/knew about, I would definitely be making a complaint , whether she accessed your file or you were being discussed.

Don't be so fucking patrionising.

@BlondiePortz it's a really strange stance to assume mental illness over people accessing medical records- it's happens all the time (I'm a nurse).

People break confidentiality all the time, when my sister died my mum called her GP to let them know and the receptionist called her mum to tell her who turned up at our house (telling us her daughter had told her).

People are nosy and love to gossip.

I hope you've requested the information, you have a right to know.

@Starrynight567
If she works in the same hospital where you had an appointment, can you be sure she didn't see you at the hospital, and noted which department you went into, but you didn't see her? Where does she work in relation to where you went, and would you have been there at shift changeover time particularly, or would her role have meant she moved around in the hospital and could have seen you arriving or leaving a department?
Could that also be why she was asking your DC 'in a roundabout way' because she only knows you went to that department/area of the hospital, and does not actually have any details.
Can you then send DC back with a red herring: 'Oh I wondered why stepmum was thinking I was unwell and was asking you - she works in xx hospital so must have seen we when I went for my routine mammogram/visited a friend/took or was collecting a friend from an appointment. '

@Ariela or she could just ask the hospital if the lady has accessed the records.

Why are people so massively against asking the hospital? If she hasn't accessed them she has done nothing wrong and nothing will be done. If she has accessed them she will be quite rightly disciplined accordingly.

It's happened to us 4 years ago I was suspicious a family member ,a Band 6 nurse so high up had accessed DH notes without clinical reason
A year later I was worried my notes had been accessed too because after visiting A and Ec I immediately received a text from this person after no contact for 18 months. I text back asking why the concern ? No response

After stewing on the subject I spoke to PALS as some posts suggest. I got assurance it could not have happened but was promised sensitivity, confidentiality, etc . No response . I rang again .
At NO TIME did we make a complaint
All hell broke loose.
ThevTrust investigated , access had occurred to both our notes as an audit showed , without due reason .
A hearing ensued, other issues came to light , I don't know what , the family member No longer works for the Trust.

The Trust informed the NMC and the ICO

There is a hearing scheduled by the NMC on fitness to practice.
Part of my family no longer speak to us , very partisan . Some I meet in secret .
The Trust TOTALLY let us down but I understand that they have to abide by GDPR

Now I sadly know a lot more about this subject

Should anyone be in fear that their or their families medical records may be accessed by a hostile family member ?

Honestly - it’s because there is no ‘NHS computer’ so every Trust is different. Where I work, I can see anything for anyone - I wouldn’t even have to try. I’ve worked in 3 Trusts and all have different access protocols.

To add to this, a close family member of mine had her records accessed by another colleague. It was her GP records. The GP actually spotted a login by someone who shouldn’t have been in the record. To this day, the records are accessible only by the named GP and the practice manager. This happened in 2004 but the trust is destroyed forever. The nurse was dismissed by the Practice.

WTAF.

If she's accessed them using System One, I think there will be a log. Ask your GP practice.

I work in a hospital as a band 7 nurse, linked to one department but have limited direct patient contact. I can access the records to everyone in the hospital. Every hospital has a different system and limits.

I guess it really depends on the systems your hospital has, I still don't get how you know you can access any and every patient without accessing patients you have no medical need for though especially patients who have been discharged for example and have no open pathways in your hospital? How have you tested that? I'm sure a couple of times you have typed the wrong number but again why would you be searching for patients directly in their medical record rather than on an episode / appointment basis first to check you're are selecting the record of someone you are meant to be viewing their record. I still think there is a lot of fearmongering that these systems have nothing in place to at least flag up that you are accessing a patient who isn't currently yours or active or there's a bunch of NHS staff working on their systems really inappropriately

@Brokenrecordroundround I know because I know what level access I have been given. I very rarely need to access any records, I think about once every 3-4 months.

I don't need to test what level of access I have, surely when given access, doing the training etc. tells us that?

In my old community job I was given access to adults on the system but not children. I knew that because that's what was granted, not because I tried to search children up.

What a strange way to look at it, to assume that people just blindly use patient databases without any understanding of whet they can access. If you didn't know what you could access surely you'd just ask?

But I'm not saying people are using them blindly without knowing who they can access? I think it's weirder to use a database blindly assuming you can access any and every patient, even those not currently active within your trust as they've been discharged. As shit as many things in the NHS area there is a level of information governance and people's access is usually (especially since electronic record started) restricted to at least patients they would have a reasonable relationship to i.e. currently an active patient, has a pathway with your division and not every single patient ever. That's why I'm asking how people know they can access inappropriate pts as before you get into anything confidential you can already see whether that is your appropriate patient so why would you continue? There's a big difference between being able to see everyone's info as in upcoming appts and pathways and being able to see people actual medical record is what I'm saying.
I think if posters think (or are certain) they can access any and every patients confidential electronic record within their trust you should be flagging that up as a massive governance risk rather than flippantly saying it's normal.

@Brokenrecordroundround but when it's set up you are told what access you have. I can 100% access people who have been discharged, I don't need to do it very often but sometimes I do (when writing reports for certain projects). Not everyone will have this level of access but many do.

If people don't have full access to the medical records they will often get letter access though, so if someone has been discharged they will be able to see appointments and GP letters etc. That will give you a great rundown of someone's medical history if you want to see it.

Maybe we have totally different experienced. I know what access is on my smart card ime. Nurse level access, but that doesn't confirm access to every patient. I can also view discharged patients that I have relevant relationship with, like I'm auditing our previous cases. Just because I can access them I dont assume I can access the medical record of a discharged patient never seen in my division is what I'm saying hence why my original post said why are all these people certain they can access patients they have no relationship with without experience of doing that?
Yes relationships are wide and massive, if a patient has a rheumatology pathway probably everyone down to band 2 hcas in their division can access their record, but I still think the assumption that your IT dept has no governance to stop them all accessing someone discharged from oncology 5 years ago is mad and if your trust really operates like that you should be reporting it.

@Brokenrecordroundround I think you are generalising based on both the place and the way that you work.

Not all clinical systems have patients allocated by division or linked to particular clinicians. A degree of familiarity with how the clinical systems function is enough to understand that they grant access to all registered patients, without having intentionally looked up patients to check.

For example, I recently entered the wrong hospital number and the clinical system I was using populated all of the demographic information and results for an adult man. I work in neonates so there's no way I would have any clinical reason to look at his notes. Obviously I closed the record but I could have clicked on his results tabs, personal details etc - if the system was going to intervene it would have prevented me from accessing his record in the first place. I know that my profile is not linked to any particular division because I had to manually set up my own patient lists on it.

Another example - the handover software that I have used in several trusts is linked to both records and results. Again, the user has to manually enter which patients/wards you want to automatically populate the handover list when you open the software - it's down to you there are no restrictions in place. However the software was actually having an issue with forgetting the patient lists you've chosen, so for a period of time it would automatically populate the details of random adult patients until filtered for paediatrics. We could see everything you would expect to find on a handover list for literally a completely random set of inpatients. Detailed information about reason for admission, background medical information, key results, infectious disease status you name it! In fairness, this was such an egregious breach of confidentiality that I did complain about it but nothing changed. The trust had already purchased the software contract and doesn't get much say in how it works it seems.

I have worked in the NHS for 10+ years as doctor with dozens of clinical systems and I haven't encountered any that have restricted my access to patient records or results, not once.

This isn't fear mongering, I think you have been overly reassuring.

This is also my experience.

My trust doesn’t even mandatory have smart cards! In almost 20yrs I have never found a record I couldn’t access - I was a research nurse for 8yrs & not once have I ever had to enhance my IT privileges - I got into every record I ever needed to. Male, female, dead, alive, neonate, geriatric. You name it.

Personally, I opted out of the spine about…god I don’t know, 15 yrs ago? Whenever it was set up. I saw how awful the IT was and decided no. I wrote to my GP and he replied he didn’t blame me and was doing the same!

NHS IT is a joke.

OP I hope you pursue this - the trust with these records is sacred and should never be abused.

Yes I T has really enhanced practice in the NHS .
NOT Also very expensive to run and made some people very rich.