Author: simon
Sandown Health Centre Patient Data Lost
Tuesday, 20th May, 2008 at 3:25 pm, Isle of Wight
Island-wide, Media, Sandown, Technology
We’re all becoming wearily-familiar with how often private information about us is being lost by government departments.
The latest to become public (how many more of them are there that we don’t hear about?), concerns the Isle of Wight.
The data of 38,650 NHS patients going back as far as 1996 have been lost on their way between London and Sandown Health Centre on the Island.
Don’t laugh here, but the reason it was being sent was … to check the backup, in case the data was LOST!
While 38,650 people sounds like a huge number out of the 130 – 140,000 people who live on the Island, we’re told by the Primary Care Trust that it includes “large numbers of patients who registered on a temporary basis whilst visiting or working on the Island and patients who have since transferred to practices elsewhere.”
One saving grace is that the data is held on tape, and as anyone who has ever had to use tape-based backup system will know, retrieving information from them is hardly ever easy, and the PCT says the data is protected by a password.
As the lost tape is a backup, all of the data is still available on the computer systems at Sandown.
Dr Peter Randall, Senior Partner at the Sandown Health Centre was confident enough to say, “My own view is also that the risk of any harm resulting is minimal. My own family are registered as patients at this practice which means their details are amongst those on the tape. I have no worries about the information falling into the wrong hands and being used improperly.”
Image: AdamsPupil
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Who was the courier for the trust? It might be worth knowing so we can minimise our own risk of important items getting mislaid.
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The Telegraph reports the courier as City Link.
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That is bad. City Link is one of the few couriers that do not charge extra for delivering to the Island. I have used them lots of times in the past with no problems. Perhaps it is just sensitive documents they can’t handle.
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Sorry to disabuse people. City Link is not all that it seems. I recently ordered a piece of computer equipment online, and was surprised to get a card with my morning post saying that Royal Mail Sorting at Ventnor had a parcel for me which required payment – it turned out to have been deposited with Royal Mail at Portsmouth somehow. Royal Mail took it under their wing, sent it to the addressee (me) at Ventnor, and proceeded to collect full postal charges plus the unpaid postage administration fee. Of course, I had already paid the online supplier for postage, as well, but fortunately they reimbursed me the Royal Mail costs when I complained. But Royal Mail at Ventnor told me that it had happened before with City Link – they don’t want to deliver to the Island, and so deposit the parcel with the Post Office on the mainland and leave someone to pick up the tab.
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Good point Angie.
On the strength of this, we’ve put a call into City-Link’s press office to try and get some more details on this.
Rentokill actually own City-Link and in a recent press release (22 April) they reported, “The difficulties experienced in the group’s parcel delivery business, City Link, have continued through Q1 2008.”
They go on to say, “The new senior management team put in place at City Link over the past two months has begun to address the operational problems within the business.”
We’ll update when we hear more.
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@Simon
“The new senior management team ……..has begun to address the operational problems”
Now where have I heard that before…. Seaclose?
In all honesty, I’ve had stuff delivered by them from their depot in Cowes. No problems.
There’s also another courier company opposite Well Road car park in East Cowes, can’t remember the name, but they’re good too. And Hampshire Freight.
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