Hospital loses all medical records

[e28bigalbexley]

My wife had to go to hospital to see a consultant unfortunatly they said they had missed placed her records and to make another appointment which she duly did and returned on the new date and was told again her records were not available.
After a couple of letters it has emerged that the hospital has no idea where her records are and admits they may well have lost them.

Are they liable under the Data Protection Act for not keeping records safe.

Thanks
Alan

[Desideratist]

Originally Posted by e28bigalbexley

My wife had to go to hospital to see a consultant unfortunatly they said they had missed placed her records and to make another appointment which she duly did and returned on the new date and was told again her records were not available.
After a couple of letters it has emerged that the hospital has no idea where her records are and admits they may well have lost them.

Are they liable under the Data Protection Act for not keeping records safe.

Thanks
Alan

I believe it's the very fact that they have to keep records safe that causes all the problems. Medical records are good old fashioned paper folders - less likely to crash like computer records do, and (despite what has unfortunately happened to you) harder to lose - imagine a desk covered in them...you can't miss them.

Hospitals also have to keep records for a long time - which means all hospitals have rooms literally stuffed with thousands of these folders - some of which are people that haven't been seen in decades. These are all kept in order, but are often going in and out all the time - different departments being involved in care all wanting to see the notes etc.

Likely a "misfile" - being put in the wrong place on the shelves by mistake, or tucked in someone else's notes, these sorts of things could happen. The fact that the hospital has written formally to say they're missing means that someone will have had a good look round to find them - speaking as an NHS employee, losing records is not good and if things go AWOL we'll look in all the likely places and then the unlikely ones as well looking for a missing set. However, misfiles happen, sadly. We're only human.

It may be worth contacting your GP - your doctor may well have been kept informed about how the consultation with your wife went, and should have some records (a letter from the consultant, usually, or discharge summary, that kind of thing). Blood test results are kept on computer as well as printed out (well they are at my hospital, anyway).

As far as the Data Protection Act goes I don't know. They will probably say they can't do anything more, if the hospital did whatever they could to find the missing notes. A new set will have been made up, and I would imagine that the consultant will have written something in there to say the "story so far".

And missing notes often "turn up" if a filing clerk finds them in the wrong place on a shelf or some such, so hopefully they will reappear.

Sorry I can't be more help, but you've been very unlucky.

[Rich44]

I think you will find that the systems that hospital use these days are so robust thaty medical records are seldom if ever lost through corruption etc whereas any schmuck can leave paper records in the canteen etc

[Desideratist]

Maybe so, but even if they had been left on a table somewhere, someone else who found them would have gone "oh, a stray set of notes I'd better put them back in file". Notes don't stay on desks for long - not enough desk space.

[Rich44]

Yeah IF it was a member of staff and IF it was a member of staff that was actually bothered.

Ive seen records left out and could quite easily have helped myself if I had wanted to you cant do that with computer records obviously

[Battleaxe]

Oops, to lose the patients notes is not good practice, that said, there is a computerised tracking system (or there should be) as to when the last time the notes were booked out and to whom.

Contact PALS and tell them what has happened, also lodge a complaint with the Complaints Manager. Writing to you admitting that they have lost the records is worth it's weight in gold if you want to escalate this complaint up the NHS food chain.

Patients records are not easy to loose really, the tracking system should be rigorous and it will be Patients Records Manager who has to account for this.

There should also be duplicate copies of investigations and letters written on the hospital computers and the records can be reconstructed from these. I know every letter written has a digital copy in the relevant secretaries office.(There should be if they are following guidelines).
One copy for computer record, one copy for patient record, one copy to GP/and or referrer This also applies for investigations, so if it was lab work, there will be a computerised record there and the same for radiology.

your wife's hospital number will be recorded on every bit of documentation, so someone is going to be kept busy reconstructing her file. Small help to you at the moment, but it if the hospital concerned does not want it's ratings to go down, this complaint will have to be addressed satisfactorily.

Insist that they back track and do what they are paid to do.

Good luck

[martell]

I am new to this site and just came across your enquiry.
My hospital reversed the last 2 digits of my hospital number when I was a child and therefore at the time said my notes could not be found. This was later tied up only because my mum had noticed the error . Maybe this might help if your notes have still not been located