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‘Staff shortages behind hospital’s lost discs’
STAFF shortages at the Whittington Hospital may have led to the loss of thousands of confidential staff records, the Tribune has learned.
The Archway hospital announced on Monday that four CDs containing personal data of 18,000 staff members had disappeared from the payroll department post tray on its way to an IT firm on July 22.
But sources have revealed that alarm bells had been sounded over staff shortages and the use of agency workers in the department earlier in the year.
Pamela Edokpayi, regional secretary of public sector union Unison, said: “We have had a number of complaints of staff shortages in the payroll department recently. There is a lot of pressure on colleagues to cover others who are on long-term illness.”
The hospital, which announced on Wednesday it will be recruiting five new permanent staff in the department, denies any problem with cover.
But they are unable to explain why the discs were put in the post tray when experienced hospital staff knew all confidential details should be dispatched by courier.
A hospital spokeswoman said all staff had been briefed on procedures, which were also on the hospital’s internal computer system.
A member of staff, believed to be low-ranking, was this week suspended by the hospital’s chief executive David Sloman, who defended the department as “robust” and said the risk of identity fraud was “minimal”.
But when our reporter gained access to a private staff meeting at Camden Primary Care Trust headquarters on Monday, 40 staff, many upset, were told that although the discs were password-protected they were not encrypted.
Speaking at the meeting, Wendy
Wallace, chief executive of the Foundation Trust, said that “strange things could come through the post”.
An internal inquiry will review whether any more senior staff were at fault, the hospital spokeswoman added.
The data was supposed to be dispatched by courier on a 90-mile journey to Warwick, where US IT giant McKesson has its UK headquarters, and where it was to be added to an updated database.
The company was in the process of updating its Electronic Staff Records (ESR) archive.
The service is used by 90 per cent of the hospitals in England and, according to records stored in Companies House, McKesson made in excess of £4 million profit from the rollout of ESR last year.
Its American parent company, McKesson Corporation, is the 18th richest firm in the world and boasts a $90 billion portfolio.
Geoff Martin, campaigns manager at London Health Emergency, said: “In the good old days, hospitals dealt with payroll in-house. Now we have really confidential information flying around the motorway on motorbikes. This was a disaster waiting to happen and staff are right to ask ‘what is going on?’. They might as well have popped the stuff in a bottle and thrown it down the Thames.” |
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