DATA MANAGEMENT
Information safety E
arlier this year the Information Commissioner’s Office
announced that it had received reports of over 1,000 data breaches of which just under a third came from the NHS.
Christopher Graham
Not only was the number of data breaches attributed to the NHS more than the all of the breaches made by local and central government combined, it also exceeded the total number of breaches emanating from the entire private sector.
So why is this happening?
“The NHS is one of our biggest customers because it is one of the nation’s biggest organisations and employers,” says Information Commissioner Christopher Graham.
“It is also a very big user of IT so I am not panicked by these figures because it is important to raise awareness. More cases are brought to our attention and then something can be done about it.”
This was certainly borne out by the figures obtained by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which showed that there had been an increase of over 50 per cent in the number of breaches reported in the last year.
Although some of this increase is attributable to an increase in awareness, it also suggests there is an issue with data security in the NHS, about which something has to be done.
“The ICO wants trusts to be aware that as the users of databases – which, in their case,
58 nhe
The National Health Service holds huge amounts of data but are those in charge of the data doing enough to protect it, asks Richard Mackillican
would include the most sensitive information - they need to be particularly alert when ensuring that data is kept securely and used appropriately.
“We are very concerned to be partners with the NHS and to ensure that trusts use best practice and are careful to avoid, so far as possible, breaches in data security. This means that we go out of our way to let trusts know that we are here to help them.
“We are not trying to catch them out but they also need to be aware that we will take formal steps to obtain undertakings, such as in the cases of NHS Stoke-on-Trent and Basingstoke and North Hampshire NHS Foundation Trust.”
These undertakings require the manager involved to sign a notice which states that they are aware of their responsibilities and that serious action will be taken if they do not live up to those responsibilities in the future.
“The ICO now has a very big ‘stick in the cupboard’ to back up our regulatory powers, in the form of the power to impose a monetary penalty of up to half a million pounds on organisations which are persistent offenders or those aren’t taking notice. This threat is certainly something to make people sit up and take notice.”
In addition to this monetary penalty, the management of trusts which consistently break data protection rules will also face huge embarrassment, along with the deeply unattractive prospect of professional
humiliation and loss of reputation, whilst having their breaches dealt with in public.
“The consequences for the management involved in these proceedings are enormous as this would be a very big public failure. There are also consequences for the reputation for a particular trust, such as the loss of confidence of patients and users more widely.”
This is a signal to managers that this is important, not just something that can be ignored because it isn’t considered to directly involve the frontline when the opposite is true, according to Christopher.
“This issue is fundamentally frontline because staff are using all of the time to deliver patient care through the use of some of the most sensitive information which can be held on those patients.”
As a key regulator in Britain, the Information Commissioner’s Office is also keen to ensure that people see that it is putting just as much emphasis on education, advice and guidance, as they do into more formal enforcement.
“We are not trying to frighten anyone but it is imperative that people realise just how important data protection is to all of us.”
Hopefully, this message will resonate more widely with NHS managers. The first time the ICO issued a warning to the NHS to clean it up its act, the number of incidents of data loss actually rose.
“It was a rather enterprising journalist who noted that after our initial warning, the number of reported data breaches had risen by fifty per cent and so
Sep/Oct 10
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