Trust staff go unpunished for patient data snooping

Acting joint director Sian Thomas said there was evidence that trusts around the country were letting staff off the hook for breaking data privacy rules.

At one trust in the North East, the number of staff involved in a recent incident reached double figures.

Ms Thomas, speaking at a briefing session at the NHS Confederation's annual conference, said in many cases there had been "no consequences" for the people involved. She said this was particularly true for doctors.

One of the problems was staff passing around smart cards, which provide access to patients' medical records and prescriptions. "This isn't sustainable for the future," she said.

With the extension of the summary care record and choose and book, it was vital that trusts had robust processes to deal with staff who abused patient data.

Ms Thomas said trusts needed to stress to independent sector organisations that the same responsibilities over information governance extended to them. This had not always been happening, she said, which amounted to "a major failure of procurement processes".

NHS Employers is working on a template for contracts that will have a new paragraph on disciplinary procedures.

The Department of Health is also amending confidentiality processes and disciplinary procedures to ensure all NHS staff are aware of data protection rules.

Last month NHS chief executive David Nicholson wrote to chief executives reminding them of their duties. He said strategic health authorities should consider carrying out audits of their primary care trusts and trusts' compliance with information governance standards and that organisations should identify a senior information risk owner at board level.

The clampdown follows a series of data breaches in which sensitive information has been lost or misused by public officials.

And last year the online system used to recruit junior doctors into training inadvertently exposed thousands of applicants' personal details, including phone numbers and sexual preferences.

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