Addenbrooke’s Hospital faces a very high risk of loss of patient data.
According to a risk management audit done by the hospital itself, the high volume of data handled by the hospital everyday by a large number of staff indicates that the risk of data loss is very high.
It would be almost impossible to prevent patient data loss with the current system of data storage and management.
According to reports, over the past three years, Addenbooke’s hospital has lost a ward handover sheet of about 28 patients with the patient names, without the addresses and a register of the patients who got treated by the orthopaedic and physiotherapy team, again only the names and no addresses.
The hospital had apologised for the incidents and said that they were isolated incidents and the loss of data was at the most, minimal.
However, in April this year, Addenbrooke’s Hospital witnessed a very high profile data loss. A female staff member had lost the printed data about the types of medical test to be taken by 1252 patients in the hospital and also their NHS numbers while she was travelling on a bus. A risk assessment done by the hospital had indicated the risk of data loss is very high.
The hospital is taking steps to prevent such incidents of data loss in the future.
