Help information governance issue

[bellalou1234]

Hi, I'm going out of my mind with worry. I have been told I've accessed someone's patient records at work. I categorally haven't. However, i was at work at the time of the alledged incidents. I've been on holiday this week and can't think of anything else. I'm hoping it can prove I didn't.
Has anyone got experience of this?

Have you spoken to your union?

I would assume the burden of proof is on your employer, i.e. they have to prove you did access the records rather than you having to prove you didn't. Are these electronic records rather than paper? Many (although certainly not all) healthcare IT systems record who has accessed the record, so if they are saying the audit log says you have accessed it, does anyone have your password? Or could have guessed it?

Yes, all electric records. I stupidly have just joined the union last week. My manager has said it's a long, drawn-out process from it.

Does the record belong to someone you know? Why was the issue brought to attention? Do you routinely look at patient records? I look at about 20 a day amd occasionally mistype an nhs number so end up looking at another record but I wouldn't bring it up unless I realised I knew the person.

Patient record systems normally have an audit function that shows which user accounts logged on to which records and when. So employer ought to be able to supply proof for this type of accusation.

No don't know the person
I just can't understand how it's happened. I would know if I have accessed someone's records. I do go into lot throughout my working day and go into the wrong one. But I'm always so careful to put entered in error.

It's pretty simple, if you were in holiday then presumably you can simply write back and say you were not in work at the time of the alleged offence. And provide evidence (flights, hotel or whatever)
You then ask them to provide evidence of your accessing the record.

Presumably you don't share logins or passwords?

@Andwegoroundagain

OP wasn't on holiday at the time they were accessed, she was at work. She is on holiday now though.

Oops sorry bleary eyed due to staying g up so late !

Sorry OP, if you were at work then you need to ask for details of the evidence that you have accessed the records. Is it possible you accidentally did so? Or that your note of accidentally accessed did not save?

The system will show you logged onto it and it’s up to your employer to prove this rather than you proving you didn’t. I imagine there will also be some way of showing how long you were on that platform too. Has someone else got your account details?

Can they give you timestamps.

So you know at 3pm you accessed a file then 3.01 b file so it's part of a series of work requests , sone you spent 1 min in (maybe a mistype) and sone 10 mins (as that's how long the job takes to do on a file)

That would be more useful information so you know if it was just 1 file accessed or 1 whilst working on 20 other files. You can then recall what sort of work you were doing.

Did somebody else use your computer?

It's highly unlikely accessed computer. Not impossible though. Buy that would also be a breach on my part for not locking it. Suppose it's better than being accused of accessing someone's record. I've had a rubbish year and can't believe this is happening it's my worst nightmare.

Did you access another file immediately afterwards? Asking in case you got a name or reference number wrong. If you mistyped Smithe then smith, an error. If you were in the record for 2 seconds, that’s different to 2 minutes.