Should I complain after a nurse shared my 16-year-old's medical details?

[Midglet]

My 16yr old had an incident this week that required medical intervention. They didn’t want people, even immediate family and close relatives, to know until they had underwent the operation and we respected those wishes. However a theatre nurse recognised their name and before my child was even under anaesthetic, the nurse had texted a distant relative of ours and divulged that not only was our child in for an operation , but the nature of such. The child was in theatre for four hours but within twenty mins of them being taken in the distant relative , who doesn’t have our mobile numbers, then started calling the hospital demanding details of our child’s prognosis and treatment. Thankfully we had been tipped off very quickly as the relative started contacting other family members ( who themselves weren’t aware of the situation until they themselves contacted us to see what was happening) and were able to request staff to refrain from divulging such. After several failed attempts the relative then turned up at the hospital and demanded access to our child, by which point they were out of surgery. The ward staff asked our 16 yr old ( with us present) if they would like the relative to gain access and our child immediately burst into tears with the thought …the relative is particularly difficult at the best of times and the children try to avoid all contact by their own choice . Thankfully again the staff were able to refuse the relative entry into the ward (Although our child is 16 and should have been in the adult wards a lack of beds had resulted in them being housed in the children’s ward with better security) . Anyway I am sitting stewing about the actions of this initial theatre nurse divulging private medical information to a third party . I know this is a huge breach of confidence and I hope such would be a disciplinary if I was to raise a complaint but I don’t know if I should . The nurse is a friend of the relative hence why she reached out and my family are divided as whether to take action as it will cause trouble within the wider family. Hubby thinks I should just forget it to keep the peace but I think the theatre nurse should be made aware her actions were totally unacceptable. I’ve never complained about anything before . Your thoughts would be appreciated !

Do you get some kind of reward or points on Mumsnet for getting loads of comments on a thread? Cause OP has made up with a story that is generating itself nicely! Well played!

This is gross professional misconduct which you should report. From what you say, the relative did not need to be contacted and told of the procedure. You are absolutely right about the breach of confidence, but this goes further with the lack of trust, disregard for the law as well as hospital procedures.
This is a very serious situation, and I strongly urge you to report.

UPDATE
Thank you everyone for all your advice with comments overwhelmingly agreeing I should take it further .

However I am truly gutted about the comments on here ( granted they are in the minority) citing my original post was rage bait. Unfortunately this genuinely happened this week. I referred to my child in the original post as ‘they’ to protect their identity. I had never met the theatre nurse in question before and as the hospital is over 75miles from our house I did not expect to have any mutual acquaintances with the staff. The theatre nurse was in the background whilst I was present and at no point did she introduce herself or identify themselves to either myself or my child as having any association with the relative, who is a very opinionated great aunt of my child who lives in the locality and with whom we have very limited contact (Children haven’t seen her in over a year) . My child had been in surgery for less than an hour when another relative contacted me and could tell me the exact nature of the operation my child was undergoing at the time after the aunt had contacted her demanding an update. The aunt confirmed to the other relative she was informed of my child being in hospital, the incident that caused the required medical treatment AND the nature of the operation required by her ‘friend’ ( who she named) who was present in the operating theatre.
My husband remains dead against me raising this with the appropriate authorities and it’s already caused friction in our house . I am useless at complaining and have never done so before but I am angry at the actions of this theatre nurse. Whilst I would really like to put my big girl pants on and complain i am worried the nurse would lose her job which would obviously be catastrophic for anyone and would be content if I knew management would just make her aware how inappropriate and unethical her actions were but not knowing how her bosses would react is making me hesitant .

Wow if this really happened it is a no-brainer - report.

Lack of patient confidentiality, going against various HCP/NHS guidance and just overall flagrant disregard of GDPR/Data protection.

In this case you can probably report to the information commissioner re GDPR but also directly report it to the hospital. They are in BIG trouble!

Most likely will be dismissed. They might face their nurse registration being taken away from them too.

Report. She broke not only hospital policy, but THE LAW

Is it your great aunt on your husbands side? Either way I really can’t understand this behaviour from your husband. He needs to grow up, what happened is serious and needs reporting.

Yes you do need to put on your big girls pant and send a complaint email. Don’t think too hard about it. Just find the email address and copy and paste some of what you’ve written here and hit send.

Riddiculous.

YOU NEED TO STAND UP FOR YOUR DAUGHTER!!!!!

don’t be so bloody ridiculous.

her most private medical information has been breached and spread around like wildfire.

fuck the nurse and fuck whatever ramifications your husband is scared of.

grow a backbone and report her. Stand up for your kid!!

Uh yeah report it. Its a Data breach, breach of confidentiality and trust and a Safeguarding issue especially as the patient is a minor.
They have messed up big time and this is a sackable offence because this is like rule 1 in their line of job.
I work in care but in community and I have ignored my own mother when out with service users because not everyone is happy with people knowing they have support.
I feel so sorry for your child because this has become the opposite of what they wanted.

Why are you worried about the nurse losing their job though? You don’t know them. It won’t be your fault if they face consequences, it will be their own fault for knowingly breaking confidentiality. You absolutely need to report this. Stuff your husband

It's the law for a reason. What if she rang up a man to say his wife was at the hospital but she'd ran from him due to domestic violence. Or a child who had been abused. You must report her.

It’s really sad to see some parents who won’t stand up for their child. Even if it was me and a nurse had did that I’d report it, let alone a child. Honestly I think I am more shocked by the reluctance to report than the actual data breach.

Well it won’t be “catastrophic” for her future patients if she’s fired. I can imagine many patients medical issues have been shared to various people in her life. I can’t believe this is her first rodeo.

She is probably unprofessional in other ways too.

Of course you should report her. If she loses her job it is her fault, not yours.

How her employer acts is not your responsibility.

And PP with experience in the area on this thread have said she would be disciplined but not sacked.

Your DH is not putting your child first.

Complaining isn’t hard, you just write out what happened exactly as you explained here. (Include the info that from the outset your Dc wanted confidentiality and burst into tears.

I feel sorry for your child if fear for toxic family and people who acted very wrongly is prioritised over their interests.

What do you think your child will learn from this?

Come on OP: why post? Everyone here has said it’s serious and must be reported.

OP, do you really think that this theatre nurse has only ever divulged any information about your daughter? Of course not... she'll be spreading other people's confidential information too and it needs to be stopped. What would the nurse's superiors do if you report? Why should you care? She would most certainly end up in a disciplinary but the outcome of that is not for you to determine, it is for them to do. That your great aunt turned up at the ward demanding to see your daughter should highlight how fucking serious this breach was. Please do the right thing and report.

Absolutely report, serious breach of GDPR- report her to the theatre manager/ PALS and NMC this is just not acceptable and make sure the staff on the ward are aware of it so they can document it/ incident report it

@Midglet you really do have to report this. It's not your decision what happens to her after that. Hopefully one of her colleagues who knew about this has already reported it.
People who work in the NHS themselves have said you need to do it.

@Midglet Apologies , I was one who wondered if it were a troll thread.

You definantly need to complain. Explain the situation. Even without your son’s expressed wishes that his hospital stay private, the nurse shouldn’t have told anyone.

Secondly, the hospital should not have told the relative where your son was. That’s a safeguarding concern.

You need to tell the hospital. If she looses her job, that’s a decision the hospital has made, not you. All you have done is raised your concerns, about the lack of professional care.

Thus is serious!

This. And for all the other patients who trusted her with private information. Set a good example for your children and stand up for whats right

Fgs, OP, this is really serious. What stone does your dh live under, this is not new law or obligation. REPORT

OP never stated whether it was a son or daughter. You may want to edit your post.

This.

this person has no business doing this and you need to think BEYOND your daughter here.

this person is correct, think of domestic abuse victims and child victims.

safeguarding and these rules exist for a reason!! To protect people!

She will put someone else in danger for sure. And you would be contributing to that.

Absolutely report it. She caused a family member to turn up at the hospital demanding access to someone who had just had surgery and did not want anyone knowing! That’s awful! If she gets sacked, she deserves it. If relative kicks off, let her.

Daughter son whatever who the fuck cares. It’s a serious issue.

Good grief who cares what your husband thinks. This has nothing to do with him.

This is about your daughter who suffered the consequences. Imagine what other stuff this nurse could be doing!! A nurse who has nothing to do with you either.

You need to stop worrying about if she’ll loose her job or not. That’s not for you to decide. You ring up/email and tell them what’s happened. What happens next you likely won’t be told. Your husband will potentially forgot about it anyway. But your daughter won’t. The consequences are not that bad if she did loose her job - that’s an odd thing to say. Do you not realise the type of consequences that can happen when people leak information like that? You’ve only seen what’s happened on your case which is bad enough. What if next time she recognises someone whose is in an abusive relationship or something and puts them in danger. She has to be told this is wrong!

You absolutely can not put what what this man is wanting ahead of patient rights! I can’t believe you’d even consider that.

You should not worry about whether the nurse is going to lose her job. That is not your problem. It is unlikely this is an isolated incident. If you don't report it, she is likely to do it again to someone else. You could have stopped that by reporting it.