I’ve reported my friend for an NHS confidentiality breech

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I have a (now ex) friend who works for the NHS who works as a clerical officer who we’ll call Karen. I’m in the early stages of pregnancy and haven’t told anyone other than my dh. Had my first midwife appointment and since this, I’ve had some congratulations texts from people within my friendship group. When I queried how they knew I was pregnant, they said they heard it from Karen. When I asked Karen about this she said she saw it on my file, and shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. I’m really upset that she’s just looked me up on her hospitals system like this. She works where my appointments are and openly said that she’s done this and has done it to a few of us in the group so she knows what’s going on. It’s my first pregnancy and I’m so anxious and I’m so upset so many people know about it.

At the time I was so angry I instantly filed a complaint to the hospital. Information governance then contacted me to say they’d be conducting an internal audit. This was 3 weeks ago and I’ve not heard anything since. I’m still upset with Karen but I now feel so guilty I’ve done this. I don’t want her to loose her job. Karen knows I’ve done this because I’ve told her and she’s livid and none of our mutual friends are talking to me now.

Is there anyone here who works for the NHS who can explain what happens in these situations? I’m guessing everything is fine because I’ve not heart anything from information governance since but I’m so worried

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I applaud your brave decision.
I majorly applaud that you revealed to "Karen" that you'd outed her indiscretion(s) ... you did say that she kept track of several people in the frienship group.
It's tough on you that you've been cut off. But their severing of you is a commentary on their mixed ethics and appalling moral compasses.

I'm totally with you - beyond unacceptable. Can you imagine if she was saying 'oh be careful near JOE because he's got HIV' or 'csn you believe Sarah's child has another uti' etc etc its just as bad

She deserves to lose her job. Breaching GDRP is very serious and patients rely on us to protect their privacy. You can't have people doing this ......ever.

Tbh, they all sound thick to me if they can turn a blind eye to this and you’re better off without them OP.

My medical records would make for a very interesting read to your ex friend, including one near fatal mental health crisis and a history of severe mental health only close family and oldest friends know about.

The others might feel differently if they’d had an abortion or something like this, for example.

This! Confidentiality is drummed into you when you work in a medical setting. She was out of order.

She will definitely lose her job, yes

I used to work for the NHS - its made explicitly clear that clerical systems are not to be abused by looking at personal information of people you know - its gross misconduct and the likelihood is she will be sacked because it is illegal.

It's a data breach of GDPR and the trust will have to report this incident to the Information commissioner's office (ICO) and get a reference number. Then they should write to you OP with that reference number and the results of their investigation. They will also need to explain how they will prevent such a thing occurring again.

As for the "what's the harm" bull crap - I imagine you wouldnt want your GP receptionists gossiping about your private medical issues to all and sundry would you?

This happened to me once - when my kids were at primary school, my dad got dementia and went into a nursing home. The manager of the home was another parent I used to see at the school gates. My kids came home one day and said her son had told them their grandad was "mad" and they were very upset. This woman had clearly been giving her son updates about my dad's condition. So you can fck right off with your "what's the harm" BS. There is plenty of harm when confidentiality is breached.

This is on her not you.

My mum works in NHS admin and I remember years ago a colleague of hers was fired for looking at a relative's file (without their permission and for no reason other than to nosy). I remember my mum saying it's the first rule they're taught. And it's just pretty basic morally isn't it. Decent people don't nosy in others medical files and then talk about them!

Your friends being mad at YOU is shocking. You need better friends OP.

As the pp said, electronic medical records have an audit trail of who has viewed them (every member of staff has their own identifying network login).

For example, clinicians (are meant to!) do a monthly audit of their case loads to see who has viewed their patient's record, and report any unfamiliar staff name for investigation. Electronic applications have flags too, if you search your own name for example. Confidentiality breaches are taken very seriously, if you're proven to have breached same it is gross misconduct and dismissal.

Your friend may have viewed a physical record, in which case it would be hard to prove (unless she admitted it). If she's been shown via audit to have viewed your electronic record, she may be in the process of disciplinary action/dismissal (there's no warning for a clear breach, it's dismissal) but could remain suspended for a time while paperwork to dismiss her is completed. I've known this type of thing to take an age, if an employee cites health reasons and such like to avoid attending disciplinary hearing.

Oh hellllllll no!! (Previous NHS worker here) Do not feel bad at all and I cannot believe your friends are taking her side? Doing this is a massive NO! I hope she loses her job, she has absolutely no right doing this! I cannot stand how people think they have the right to access a friends information AND THEN TELL PEOPLE!!! You did the right thing, congratulations on your pregnancy x

No, what she has done is worse. You’re only supposed to access notes in the course of your business, so if she was booking an appointment, etc. if she had no reason to go into your file, then she shouldn’t and then to tell others about it.

It doesn’t long to audit a file. I would chase it up.

Dont feel bad. She doesnt deserve to be in the job if she has no regret or remorse for what she has done. Regret because shes facing being fired doesnt count.

You don't need these friends that can't see whats wrong with what shes done.

If they can prove it they will probably fire her. I'd expect that she loses her job and quite right.

If it was physical notes she looked at (less likely) she might deny it and get away with it. Or there's a small possibility she's looked at your record on someone else's log in. And then it will be harder to prove it was her but would look suspicious if there was someone who had looked at your record with no reason to and they work in the same dept/are known to your friend.

No, she’s not at all. That’s why I asked (and I see at least one other poster has). It’s not clear what prompted her to access the records of the OP or the friends she’s apparently done this to before. If she is regularly scanning their records on spec, that’s pretty large scale. If she sees their names on a clinic list, and draws conclusions, then her lack of confidentiality is still a serious matter, but she may not have accessed their records so an audit won’t show that.

What has triggered her to look at your file, OP, and that of others?

I work in an NHS hospital. I would never even mention that I'd seen someone in the hospital (e.g. I wouldn't tell my Mum if one of her friends was an inpatient). It's confidential information, we all know it's confidential information and your friend deserves to be sacked for her stupidity, numbness to your feelings and arrogance when confronted.

Don't feel bad. If I had someone done this to me I would have gone absolutely ballistic and complained too. I actually felt violated when reading on your behalf as it would be such a shit thing to happen.

Ask the mutual "friends" if they're all happy for her to go through their medical records.

This happened to me, my 'friend ' got sacked with no right to appeal. She's not my friend anymore but I know i did the right thing reporting as its absolutely unforgivable to use NHS details to pry on peoples personal lives.

You did 100% the right thing OP.

Karen should have known better. She gets enough training around information governance working in the NHS. She obviously thinks the rules don’t apply to her. Karen can get lost and so can the rest of the ‘friendship’ group. They don’t sound like friends worth keeping.

Do the other “friends” know that she’s looked them up too? What she’s been doing is so much worse than being reported for doing it. Your other “friends” sound shit.

What she did is extremely unacceptable. And worse, she doesn’t even seem to realise what she did is wrong.

It will be clear on the system when she accessed your records and as i assume she didn't work in maternity, it will be clear she accessed them in appropriately.
She will probably be fired. For what it's worth you did the right thing - if she has such a cavalier attitude to patients privacy she shouldn't be working in the NHS, and why was she just randomly checking your notes? She must be doing it to people she knows all the time. She would've been caught eventually anyway (when she shouldn't resist looking at celebrity of victim of crime records for example).
The fact she thought it okay to share with your mutual 'friends' and that they are taking her side however, is baffling to me.

Your mutual friends are a bit bonkers here ... It's bad enough that she had been accessing records, but then to spread private information is beyond contempt. Yours is happy news, pregnancy, but medical records hold all manner of news ...
She lost her job by her own misconduct - you did not cause this.

Consider another scenario - imagine if a woman with a abusive ex needed information kept confidential as it should be ( eg her address ) and it was leaked because confidentiality was not maintained that could have serious consequence's.

Karen’s behaviour is absolutely unforgivable, and utterly unprofessional, and she knows this. You did the right thing reporting her, it’s her fault this happened, not yours.

Best wishes for your pregnancy.