GP Practise loses of patients back up tape

Date published: 08 July 2008

Patients of Whitaker Lane Practice in Prestwich have been informed by personal letters of the loss of a practice back up tape from 13th May 2008 which is compatible with the GP system.

6,000 registered patients have been informed of the loss of the tape. Technical experts for the practice system have provided reassurance that the data which is in the form of a magnetic tape is very unlikely to be accessible by other systems, not for example home PCs, as it can only be read on a specialist system.

A back up tape is made every day to safeguard the information contained on the computer system, in the event of fire, theft or computer failure. The tape therefore contains a duplicate copy of records.

It is standard practice for GPs to hold patient details after they are no longer registered at the practice, therefore the back up tape contained a total of 11,851 patient records.

The GPs at the Practice said;

“Despite the low risks to patients in terms of their details being accessed by someone else, we felt it was important under our duty of care, for patients to know that this loss has occurred.”

Dr Jeff Schryer said;

“My own view is that the risk of any harm resulting from this incident is negligible. Some of my own children are registered at the practice and I am reassured that there is no need to worry about the very, very small risk to their information.”

The tape was last seen within the practice, but a thorough search has not uncovered it and hence we have taken these measures. We are working with the Primary Care Trust to improve processes and learn lessons.

Any patients that wish to speak to someone about this can phone Sue Panter, Practice Manager on 0161 773 5717 or the PCT’s PALS Manager on 0800 3283166 (during normal office hours)