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PRIVATE FILES SPARK STREET PAPER CHASE
Officials race to recover documents containing medical histories
AN investigation has been launched after hundreds of confidential documents – many with private phone numbers, addresses and personal medical details – were found scattered across Holloway Road.
Early-morning commuters were stunned to see papers, some relating to mental health cases, on the road near St Mary Magdalene’s Church on Wednesday.
Islington Council and NHS staff, alerted by passers-by and traders, raced to the scene to collect as many of the papers as possible but could not say if all had been recovered.
The files belonged to the council’s legal department, which covers casework relating to housing and social services. They had been put in a confidential storage bin for shredding.
But they were accidentally mixed up with a batch of recycling and finished in a closed lorry belonging to private contractor Kier/Paper Round, bound for a depot in Essex.
Islington Council Lib Dem finance chief Councillor John Gilbert last night (Thursday) apologised for the “serious breach” in the safe disposal of sensitive documents and promised a full investigation.
The Town Hall has refused to go into detail about the papers, but a spokesman said: “They are believed to relate to a small number of live cases. They were duplicate documents no longer required for casework. We collected approximately 100 pieces of paper.”
He added: “We have contacted our waste collection contractor about the spillage. Kier/PaperRound use closed vehicles for paper recycling so it is not clear how these papers came to be on the road. We have also reminded those dealing with sensitive material of the confidential waste disposal arrangements.”
An estate agent, who asked not to be named, described how she found piles of papers outside her shop when she arrived for work after 9.15am. She said: “I read just one page, but I was shocked. It identified the name of an individual, their address and mobile number. There were also personal details of the person’s mental illness.”
Within minutes of the files being scattered, two NHS officials arrived to retrieve as many as they could. In some cases, traffic was held up to allow the men to collect paper which had been swept across the road.
Peter Jones, of mental health organisation Islington Borough Users Group (IBUG), said this kind of material should have been shredded.
“It is madness to move confidential records which are obviously not secure,” he added. “We need to know why this happened. People’s private medical histories should not be left around where they can be exposed to the public.
“It’s not the first time this has happened. A few years ago a number of confidential files found their way into a skip in St Pancras.”
A Town Hall insider said: “It’s not uncommon to see bags of confidential papers sitting around the Town Hall corridors.”
Former Islington Lib Dem Mayor Margot Dunn, who lives close to the scene of the paper spillage, said: “We can’t have private and confidential details of patients falling off the back of a lorry. We need to know everything about this and hope that no one’s confidentiality has been compromised.”
Cllr Gilbert said: “The council is responsible for many sensitive documents and we have a clear policy on how they should be disposed. This incident is a serious breach of those arrangements.
“I want to apologise for this incident. It should not have happened. Fortunately, we were on the scene collecting the documents within minutes.”
He thanked NHS staff for reacting so quickly, adding: “Confidential waste should be kept separate from recycling collections. This has not happened in this case. I have asked senior managers to double check that all staff and contractors are familiar with the arrangements for secure document disposal.”
A spokesman for Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust said: “We can confirm that confidential material has been discovered on Holloway Road by a member of the public. This material referred to services provided by our trust, but was the property of Islington Council.
“Patient confidentiality is of the utmost importance to us, and we took all possible immediate steps to retrieve all the papers to protect this.
“We are taking this matter seriously and will be working with Islington Council to investigate how this incident happened.” |
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