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 !

This nurse went out of her way to immediately contact someone and share a large amount of highly confidential information about a child with a distant relative. I doubt it’s the first time she has done this and it won’t be the last if she doesn’t get reported.

She deserves to lose her job because she has abused her position of trust and broken the law. This is not a marginal case, it’s completely clear cut.

Your DD deserves your support and your husband doesn’t seem to want to step up. Please report her.

Your DH is being a twat. This was a massive breach of confidentiality. If the nurse didn't want to lose their job, then they should have stuck to the terms of their job.

I have several friends and family who work within different areas of the NHS, and they have all mentioned about how you can't access patient records, or talk about patients etc and that it is a sackable offence if you do anything like that.

Why is your dh against complaining ?

what this nurse did is so unprofessional and doesn’t ever deserve to work with public and health authorities ever again

Exactly. Or a custody issue or witness protection, or employment issue

I would report it.
It's outrageous.
If she hasn't done this before she'll probably get a warning. If she has done it before and been warned previously then quite frankly, she deserves to lose her job.
If this had been someone who had fled domestic violence or a child who isn't allowed to see a parent for whatever reason, there could have been dire consequences if someone showed up at the hospital like that.

Definitely complain. Unlikely to lose job if the first time but if they’ve had a warning for it before, that’s their problem. I was a nurse for years, breaching confidentiality like this is outrageous.

Please report this, if not just for your child, for all the other patients whose privacy she might be breaching. It seems unlikely that she'd only do this once.

I can see both sides here. Yes it was very unprofessional and distressing for her child but the op doesn't want the repercussions and fallout of this nurse potentially losing her job and the great aunt making a big rift in the family over it.

But.. op would have been none the wiser if the great aunt had kept it to herself. Contacting the other relatives was bad enough. Coming to the hospital was something else. Insane behaviour. If this nurse loses her job it's her fault AND the fault of the great aunt.

Honestly, stand up for your child. It's letting NHS staff get away with shit like this that means they think they can look at anyone's records and get away with it.

We've seen where that leads with the Southport victims and the Nottinghamshire attack victims and no doubt many others.

This woman knows the rules and she broke them anyway. Just to spread gossip.

Why are you worrying if she's sacked? She deserves to be. And I bet she'll do this again and has done it before.

Report! This is a serious breach, one which the hospital will need to report legally. Totally unacceptable behaviour and actually illegal. If you report it you won’t be implicated in proceedings. Ex NHS manager.

Oh pack it in. If you can’t comprehend the post then you’re thick, but you’re obvs just trying to make a point. The gender is irrelevant and the post makes perfect sense to anyone who isn’t out looking for issues where there aren’t any.

OP, you are clearly a very kind person to be thinking about the other person's job.

However, she should face the full disciplinary process after a gross breach like this, no? Imagine the other patients who will be unlucky enough to get her.

But that isn’t your decision to make. It’s her bosses. She may have done similar before or she may have a clean record.
all you do is report what happened then they investigate and take it further or not.
She didn’t think about your child’s feelings when she shared their confidential information. She needs to be stopped from doing it again.
You don’t owe her anything but you owe it to your child to report.
this is what I think anyway and what I would do in your situation.

Sorry but she has to follow NMC rules and practice confidentiality. She’s FAFO so deserves whatever punishment she gets from the trust she works for. Hope your child is healing now xx

You owe this woman nothing. Your husband is being ridiculous - his family member won't be affected by whatever happens to the nurse.

Imagine a situation where a domestic violence victim was in hospital and the nurse told her ex partner where she was. The nurse is so out of order - she actually went to the effort of finding her phone and sending that message - it wasn't just mentioned in conversation (which would be bad enough). It was done to gossip, pure and simple.

Hi @Midglet I completely understand your reticence to lodge a complaint. I should have complained about some appalling behaviour my mum experienced in hospital, but didn’t and have regretted it ever since.
What I wish I’d known then is that you don’t complain, the process is ‘raising a concern’. I now work in the NHS too and understand ‘raising a concern’ was introduced because so many people don’t want to complain. BUT hospitals need the feedback to improve. It’s a gentler process, managed via your hospital PALS team.
I disagree with all of those who say the nurse would lose their job. It’s not that easy to dismiss someone. Their manager would definitely have words (should be formal, but in my experience not always) and they’d have to re do their Information Governance training at very least (30-60 mins online). IF and only IF they have previous documented firm for this type of behaviour would this get very serious, and it should!
As for your DH, how would he like details of his prostate exam discussed with your aunt? Maybe if this happened to him he’d take it more seriously.
Please raise a concern.

OP - tbh that wasn't really an update except to tell us you are 'gutted' by a tiny number of posters.

Despite everyone else telling you how very serious this is you have doubled down on capitulating to your DH's failure to stand up for his Dc.

Do both you and your DH fold in the face of other people being upset? Him - your toxic family, you in the face of him?

One of you at least needs to take a serious incident against your dc seriously and stick up for them. Be 'gutted' at what happened to your Dc and the distress they experienced.

That is your job.

Stop hand wringing.

And I say this to give you perspective, not to have a go at you.

You must report this -
send a message to PALS
Patient Advise and Liaison Service (PALS)

the nurse is unlikely to lose job / nurse registration but will be taken to task on a very serious breach of patient confidentiality-

@Midglet In your OP I wondered if the relative was one of your husband’s parents but it isn’t. It’s a an aunt who nobody likes and you all avoid anyway.

What are you so scared of if you report this incident? Are your DH or his family likely become violent or abusive? Any threats to you can be reported to the police. I can’t think of any other reason not to report this serious incident to all the relevant authorities.

I think I would - particularly as it’s a child. I’d hope they got a warning rather than sacked, but there may be other incidents that you are unaware of.

I had similar after the birth of our child - taken back to hospital by ambulance with sepsis, both our neighbour and DH’s distant cousin that work there in admin/nursing roles came bustling into my room to see what was wrong,I was too sick to notice them but they soon cleared off when they saw how serious it was. I only knew as DH spoke to them. They didn’t tell anyone else though, that I’m aware of!

You should definitely report her for your daughter's sake. She needs to know this is unacceptable and that, in the future, her private information will not be divulged. It will be difficult for her to trust the people who are supposed to look out for her after this so she needs the reassurance. It's pretty likely that the other staff will have reported her after they realised what happened so you could just front it out and let the family believe it was the hospital. It should have been reported to the Information Commissioner's Office by the hospital as a data breach as well I think.

I would report it without a single thought! It's a massive breach of safeguarding and patient confidentiality! She surely must have known it was wrong?!

You owe absolutely nothing to a "friend of a relative", and your DD needs to see that you've got her back.

I hope your DD is recovering well.

You have a duty to other patients to report the event. You don't have to worry about what happens afterwards. The unit may investigate and find out there is quite a different sequence of events from how it looks, or they may not investigate at all, or they may discover they have employed somebody who needs some urgent re-training in patient confidentiality.

You don't have a whole picture, and you can't see into the future and neither can anybody else. However it happened, your child's confidence was broken, and it's important that this shouldn't happen to others in the future.

Email a formal complaint, explaining clearly what happened, in chronological order, and then explaining the effect on your child.

What they do with the information is up to them. You are not responsible for somebody else's bad behaviour.

You must complain, that’s outrageous. I am a nurse, it goes against the code of conduct and will be a severe breach of organisational policy.

"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."

The nurse KNEW what the consequences of her actions were. And she did it anyway! Do you really want her to do this to other people? Who might be even more affected by her actions than you and your family have been?