NHS staff accessing medical records inappropriately in high profile or tragic news stories.

[HavfrueDenizKisi]

What the hell is wrong with people who work for the NHS and still somehow think it’s ok to voyeuristically access the medical records of patients who have been in the news?

Just read this article about 40 members of staff being investigated over the inappropriate viewing of this poor boy’s medical records. Read a similar article a few weeks back about the medical records of the victims of the Nottingham attack being accessed. Something like 11 people were sacked and 12 given final warnings about that (somehow suggesting it wasn’t their first time doing so).

Surely it is pretty fucking clear when you start working for the NHS that this is Absolutely Not Allowed. Plus it must be clear that there is a digital trail left behind of anyone accessing records. Honestly the mind boggles.

Link to article on BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg5kvpdd15o

No point. The poster I was replying to said they must be young or stupid and in my experience that’s not the case. It was usually older women. Plenty of male staff were struck off for much worse, sexual abuse not being an uncommon one!

It doesn't say in the article that 40 people have inappropriately accessed the medical records just that 40 people have accessed them. It's under investigation as to whether it was inappropriate.

40 people doesn't seem a lot for an accident like this when you consider A&E, nurses, doctors, theatre practitioners, lab staff and clerical staff would need access.

The training I've done for my NHS (admin) job makes it abundantly clear that all access to electronic records is tracked and audited, and the consequences of accessing records inappropriately.

The scenario of someone in the public eye (whether that's a famous person or Joe Public caught up in a news story), having their record inappropriately accessed is one explicitly given in training.

It boggles my mind that anyone would be stupid enough to do it, but that's people for you.

(Although it is entirely possible that a record could be legitimately accessed by 40+ people especially in a complex case involving lots of specialties, or even just a long hospital stay.)

We have filters on our database systems.
Once someone is logged under Medical, filters are applied to only allow certain people to view it.
when I worked in the NHS I signed a confidentiality agreement.
But it does not surprise me. My friend did her Return to Nursing and quit. Said it was toxic and full of entitled know alls on the ward. She was horrified.

People are flawed in many ways and often cant be trusted.
Perhaps there should be a change in the system where you have to use a personal code to access a record and check a box to confirm the reason. Might make people think twice.

Ultimately it comes down to professional integrity. I have had friends and family admitted to my trust, and I have been admittedly curious as to the details. It would be so easy for me to put their details in and find their online records. It is professional governance that stops me but also my personal quality of honesty that prevents me from looking at their notes. It can be tempting to look up information but you simply have to stop yourself. It’s unacceptable.

I think it needs to be dealt with stricter. It should be an instantly sackable offence.

Theres a receptionist at a local practise here who has been reprimanded twice (that I know of) for accessing records inappropriately.
I only know because one was mine and they told me about the complaint. She told someone something from my notes and they reported it as they knew me.

Last year another complaint was made about her doing the same thing. It was upheld and she was sent for retraining. The person whose records she went into told a mutual friend and they shared that she’d done it before.

We’ve moved surgeries.

I’m sure my SIL got her friend to look up mine. I haven’t yet gone to ask them to do an audit trail .
infortunately there are bad people working who will see someone logged in and dealing with a patient and look up things on their account so they don’t get caught.

Yes it doesn’t say that, true. However the hospital have referred themselves to the ICO so I’m guessing they are expecting some of these accesses not to be appropriate. It seems to have happened quite quickly too so perhaps 40 people is too high a number.

Anyway it obviously is a problem and as pp have said there must be many instances that go undetected.

It just makes me despair that people can be such shites as evidenced by the people sacked etc from the Nottinghamshire trust.

There is. That’s how people are caught.

I wonder why some get sacked and some just have 'retraining'? Surely if it is gross misconduct then that is that.

There are warnings. For example if a GP speaks to me about a patient and I then legitimately look up the information they have asked for on the hospital records. if the patient isn’t currently officially under my care, I have to tick a box and select the reason that I’m accessing the notes for. I don’t think much of it because I know I’m doing it for valid clinical reasons.

It does say you can be audited, but for the average person, their notes and access to them are not automatically going to be audited.

It is the high profile cases that will generally come under scrutiny. Not the average person. Which is not good.

How do these things get caught? Does it flag up to someone every time a record is accessed? Or is it that they do spot-checks every so often?

Yes, there will be many cases that go undetected. I would guess most cases are not found out.

I don’t know why you’re so shocked tbh. They’re being nosy. People do things that’ll get them sacked everyday don’t they?

my dad (now retired) worked for the police and used to look things up out of nosiness all the time.

I don’t work for the NHS and I know it’s a total taboo. However, I understand the human impulse- it isn’t necessarily ghoulish, it’s more a feeling of need to understand, and that feeling we all have that we just don’t know enough about what happened- it’s really clear on the threads here people are ‘but, but…, I mean was it…’. It’s wild speculation but a normal human impulse.

Most of us have no opportunity to satisfy that impulse. Those who do, who work for the NHS for example, should have had enough training to know they need to resist it.

And frankly the world is full of people who think the rules don’t apply to them in this particular circumstance- ‘oh it won’t do any harm etc.’

Many people regularly rule break in different scenarios- parking, speeding, etc.

Worked for the NHS (mental health) for around 12 years. When they train you to use the patient record data base you are given dire warnings about not accessing anything that is not directly to do with the patients on your case load/on the ward you are working on. There are also levels of access within each record so what you read and note is dependant on your grade and should you try to access a level above your grade a message comes up on the screen asking you why you want to view that particular entry and to give your reason for doing so. I sometimes clicked on stuff by mistake and of course went no further. Every year we had to do Information Governance training and again patient confidentiality was central to this. Every key stroke is tracked and the people who do view things they have no right to are not just purient they are stupid because they will get caught. Two of my colleagues were sacked for reading neigbours health records

I'm not at all surprised they're tempted, but I'm very surprised they do it when they must know they'll be caught. There have been so many incidents of people being fired for doing it, how can they think they'll get away with it? Unless of course there are actually many more people doing it and getting away with it than are caught, or tabloids are offering so much money it's worth being fired and never working in the NHS again. Pure curiosity can't be the reason, this many people can't be that stupid surely.

Maybe in this case and others like them, but I wonder what drives it when it’s the lady who works at the GP reception looking up the details of Mr Wilson at Number five’s piles.

I am ex-friends with a nurse who works in a potentially embarrassing speciality. She openly told us that she had the very private mum of a VERY famous person in her clinic.

I've never seen her since, it was disgusting that she disclosed it.

They do both in my experience of using patient records in mental health. You have to log in with your name and of course the system records the date and time. When you access a record you have to scroll down the menu and give a reason why you are looking at it. So the system "knows" who looked at the record, when and why. Information Governence did spot checks which was how two of my colleagues were caught looking at neighbours' records. They were both sacked.

I’m not shocked really. Just intensely disappointed.

Same when I worked for a HSCP! Though it only flagged when it was unusual number of searches, or people not in direct care of them.

The dire state of the NHS is less of a mystery if FORTY PEOPLE are fucking about not doing their jobs.

It would be useful to know how many of these FORTY FUCKING PEOPLE are medical staff, and how many are administrative.

Yes it is an issue. We receive annual training on confidentiality and appropriate access of records. My Trust is implementing a system where it's automatically flagged up if someone is searching for patients using names/addresses as we usually use NHS/patient ID numbers. There's also an additional layer of security for patients who are staff members so a reason has to be entered to access the record. I assume it could also be added for any high profile patient.