AIBU to feel appalled by staff accessing murdered children’s records?

[girlfriend44]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrpdkevvnko

Poor parents of Grace and Barnaby Webber. not only were their children murdered they then found this out about people looking up the records who shouldn't have.

Hope all those people are totally embarrassed. Glad they got caught out.

It’s human nature.

General society reads about the deaths in newspapers, or hears about it on the news, and the NHS staff have one more means of information as they can the medical details (which is their professional interest) and they see the true details as opposed to media’s version.

They are silly to take the risk in terms of thinking they won’t find out, but their motives are no different to anyone in society who either reads newspapers or watches the news with regards to being interested (for want if a better word) in horrific tragedies.

Lord knows. The head of Children's Services was clearly out of his depth, in my opinion, but the social workers' bizarre actions weren't caused by him. He used to be the Director of Education, but Fife combined his post with that of the head of Children's Social Work. The two roles are once again separate.

He vehemently denied that the debacle in social work had anything to do with his resignation. He got a golden handshake and now runs a church.

The local paper occasionally runs articles about his endeavours both home and abroad. (He's a member of the Plymouth Brethren.)

Sell information to the media?

Got to be.
Same reason they tried to access the POWs when she was undergoing cancer treatment.

Everyone at our trust are and have been told for many years that they could be seriously disciplined for even looking at their own records.

But you really don’t get much money and they were stabbed so it’s fairly straightforward. It’s not enough money to risk your job over. With the Russian poisoning in Salisbury I can understand it more (not justifying it).

@WearyAuldWumman goodness ! That's quite a career 😳

I hope they all feel totally ashamed.What did they hope to gain from accessing the records.
They should be made to sit down with families of the victims and explain why they did it.

Why on earth do 14% of people voting think YABU?!

Paid for what?

Totally unacceptable. This is just prurience. There was no way staff uninvolved in their care should have been accessing records.

It is not human nature and it's none of other people's business. Is it human nature to go filming road traffic accidents like some people have started too. No it's sick.

Well they should be struck off,

At my sleepy hospital there was an A list celebrity who attended ED as their hometown is fairly close. Three final year medical students accessed their medical records unnecessarily. The IT department did an audit and when it was found out they were kicked out of university.

I remember another trust had a huge number of people access the records of an athlete who had had a cardiac arrest but I’m not sure how they were reprimanded

Curiosity is human nature.

Filming road traffic accidents is not basic curiosity, it goes way beyond that and is not normal behaviour.

The two can’t be compared.

Ian Coates was murdered too. His records were also accessed.

Not just purient and ghoulish but really stupid. Every keystroke can be traced. They will have had to do mandatory Information Governance training which will emphasis the handling and accessing of confidential information including of course patient records. I worked in mental health for over a decade and the system we used "knew" what each worker's level of permitted access was and "knew " if a member of staff tried to get into any level of patient records that they had no authority to view. Someone on my team was sacked for looking at their neighbour's records and rightly so.

It might be in some people's nature to rubberneck at tragedies, but to deliberately abuse your position of trust in a professional role for ghoulish purposes is repellent, and anyone who does it should be sacked

I'm not suggesting it in any way excuses it, but it depends where you work at to whether its 'drilled into you' about accessing records. I'm in social care and I've worked in places where it's barely mentioned at all, it's buried in a user agreement you sign when doing the very dull access training as part of your induction. Others where you get a pop up warning every time you log in reminding you that your access is tracked. It's varied hugely and that's across social care and health for me (I've worked in places where we recorded on the health records)

I agree they should be sacked and they shouldn’t have done what they did. I agree they abused their position within the Trust to gain access to the records and they should face the consequences.

However, it’s not really that surprising is it that medical professionals are interested in reading the medical reports of such renowned deaths? I don’t think their increased level of interest due to being in the profession means they are ghoulish, repellent, perverse, sick or any other similar meaning words that have been used to describe them, they just made a very stupid decision that they thought they’d get away with.

I personally would not want to be treated by someone who had so little respect for patient confidentiality. It is the central tenet for the doctor/patient relationship and indeed for anyone employed in health care.

It’s is drummed into us not to look at data that isn’t relevant to us or our role. I’d be questioning what culture is in that trust as well as sackings for those that looked.

I’m pretty confident that the majority of professionals you have seen in your lifetime, GPs, doctors, dentists, opticians, radiographers, and any other specialists in hospitals or secondary settings, will have all read medical notes of patients they have not been directly involved in.

I imagine a lot of NHS staff who haven’t been directly involved in your care will have read your records too for various reasons.

What these individuals did is nothing alarmist or strange, it’s just made the news because it’s a big case, that’s all.

Your thoughts on this taken from the statement made by Nottingham University Trust

“To access the medical records of our patients without a legitimate reason is totally unacceptable and we are doing all we can to identify where and how that has happened. I hope that the families, staff and our communities feel reassured by the outcomes so far, that we are taking this seriously and will continue to do so.”
She added: “It is essential that access to patient records is lawful, justified and directly related to their role. By accessing records inappropriately, staff are damaging the valuable contributions made by those colleagues providing care for those patients. In those cases where it does happen, I hope that this is a very clear reminder that we will take appropriate action.”
The words that jump out at me are "lawful, justified, and directly related to their role" They have been sacked, can't see how this fits with your view that "what they did is not alarmist or strange it's just made the news because it's a big case, that's all" I am sure that the family and friends of the victims would vhemently disagree with you, in fact the statement from NUH acknowleged this In a statement, Shehmar said: “The families of Ian, Grace and Barnaby have had to endure much pain and heartache, and I am truly sorry that the actions of some of our staff have added to that.

I know the rules around accessing patient records.

All I’m saying is that it goes on a lot more than people probably realise and it isn’t always for ghoulish reasons.

However, like I said, it IS wrong what these staff
members did and they are right be punished for it.

This has made the news because it is a huge public case, but staff accessing records of patients they aren’t directly involved in probably goes on countless times in every NHS hospital around the Country every single day.

These staff are rightfully being made an example of, but what they’ve actually done is probably quite common.

Like I said, I bet there are millions of NHS practitioners out there who have read records of patients they aren't directly involved in the care of.