Hospital has lost my pregnancy notes!!

[NewMummy5July2011]

Hi
I'm so upset and just need a bit of a rant. I had to go back for a second scan following my 20 week one (somnething with my cervix) but all is okay.

After the scan I was told they had 'accidentally' sent my preg notes home with someone else, but to be assured that they would get them back and send them to me.

My husband rang them this morning, and nobody has any idea what we are talking about...

I'm SO upset right now, and not sure if I'm overreacting by being upset. Someone else has all my personal details and med history etc. Those notes are important.. does this mean I'm going to have to start all over again? I'm 22 weeks along and I'm getting really nervous about not having anything in my posession.

What does everyone think?

They lost my previous records and notes with my DS, it was for my first consultant appointment, only had my green notes so it was a very long appointment for them as I had to go through everything. They turned up for the next one though.
Hopefully yours will turn up soon.

With my DD I didn't even get my green notes back till my 36 week appointment so it isn't essential to have them on your person, mine stayed with my midwife as I was classed as high risk.

Its totally wrong that they have lost them but you should have a set and the hospital a duplicate set.

It really is quite distressing isnt it? This happened to me when i was 19 weeks pregnant ( now 38 ) had loads of different notes in .. some of which included a gall stone operation i had to have plus some very personal information i revealed to the midwife. The hospital had no idea where it had gone! after a further few weeks of me being told to ring this department and that department of the hospital i finally spoke to a woman who actually seemed concerned about my notes and found out that they had been sent to a different hospital .. had been sent back and had been sat in the mail room within the hospital for quite a while!

So i can understand why your feeling upset and you have every right to be feeling this way. Just keep on at them and im sure soon enough they're be back in your safe hands.

I think you should make a written complaint. Not in a nasty way, but they have breached Data Protection laws, as you point out. It's only by having it in writing that its gone wrong that management have the backup they need to investigate and review procedures.

Hopefully the lady will send the notes back or bring them in for her next appointment.

I can only assume the other lady hasn't got hers so I am sure she will be pretty keen to return them and get hers back.

Wow, how irresponsible! We are given a massive folder with all our notes that we are responsible for, we take it to midwife visits, GP visits and scans. It never leaves us. We are at UCLH and I have to say we are very impressed! We are currently participating in a research study too, regarding early detection of blood incompatibility between mother and baby. They are taking lots of blood but we are being offered lots of tests, scans and we get our results quicker and get to jump the ques if something wrong.

Do they know who has got them? I must say that I never used to look at what they gave me, just shoved it back in my folder so if I had them I wouldn't have noticed for many weeks as I wasn't seen very often

You mean your own handheld notes? I'd be well chuffed off.

Write a formal letter of complaint, citing your distress at loss of confidentiality. It is not on. It may have been a slip, but it may actually highlight a systematic error that's happening in clinic regularly. They need to work it out.

Agree with happy, i wld contact pals or the trusts data protection officer.