BRITAIN:Ministers faced embarrassment over another data loss yesterday when they were forced to admit that they did not have details on what information had been lost by nine NHS trusts.
The loss of data potentially covering tens of thousands of patients' records has been disclosed by the trusts to the UK department of health and to the information commissioner.
Ministers will be worried that the loss will further undermine confidence in the department's plans for a new computer base on all NHS patients' records.
The health minister, Dawn Primarolo, assured patients that nothing sensitive had been lost, but seemed to concede at the same time that she did not know what details had been mislaid, or the form in which they had gone missing.
She stressed that it was the legal responsibility of the NHS trust chief executives, and not the department of health, to inform the data authorities of such losses."They have taken all the necessary steps to notify all the relevant authorities," she said. "We need to find out very rapidly what has been lost by these nine trusts. It is not clear in what form, but it is clear that [ it] is security-protected."
Ms Primarolo said one million patients were treated every 36 hours and added that NHS procedures were far more secure than internet banking.
The data losses appear to have emerged locally, with potentially the biggest loss by City and Hackney Primary Care Trust in London, which has reportedly mislaid the details of 160,000 children after a computer disc failed to arrive at its destination at St Leonard's hospital.
Another NHS trust - Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells - has reported two breaches.
The others are: Bolton Royal Hospital; Sutton and Merton PCT; Sefton Merseyside PCT; Mid-Essex Care Trust; East and North Hertfordshire; Norfolk and Norwich; and Gloucester Partnership Foundation Trust.
Ministers have admitted that millions of child benefit data records on two computer discs have been lost by the UK Revenue and Customs. In addition, three million addresses of learner drivers have been lost by a private firm contracted to the UK department for transport.
Opposition parties seized on the latest data loss to claim that it represented a pattern of carelessness demonstrated by government departments.
The shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said the NHS data losses were "further evidence of the government's failure to protect the personal information which we provide".
Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs' committee, suggested that the government was not serious enough about data security: "Patients need to be absolutely confident that the information that is held securely cannot be lost in some haphazard way."
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "The whole culture of data management in the public sector has to change. Organisations and staff must understand that this sort of important data must be protected at all cost."
Campaigners NO2ID, who oppose ID cards and moves to centralise all NHS records, said: "We are now starting to see the consequences of the government obsession with information 'sharing' and centralised IT in the NHS. If you care about your privacy then keep your medical records between you and your doctor, and out of the hands of the department of health."