Bereaved Nottinghamshire mother sent confidential files in paperwork meant to be about her son
Natalie Needham is calling for "more than an apology" from the Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, as ITV News Central's Health Correspondent Nancy Cole reports.
A bereaved mother from Nottinghamshire has revealed she was sent confidential patient files containing details about a suicide and the death of another family’s baby, in paperwork that was meant to be about her son.
Natalie Needham’s son Kouper died unexpectedly at home in July 2019, at just a day old.
An inquest into his death found he had died of respiratory distress.
Natalie made a Subject Access Request (SAR) from Nottingham University Hospitals Trust in the years following Kouper’s death as she believed there were failings in his care.
In a serious data breach, Natalie from Hucknall was given files not only containing information about her son but also sensitive information about four other families.
She said: "In going through them all we came across other people's medical records, which were quite intrusive records and it's records that I wouldn't want disclosed to other people if it was about me. It wasn't just a little bit of information, it was quite detailed.
"It affected me really badly."
Around 2,000 families are now part of Nottingham’s ongoing Independent Maternity Review, led by former senior midwife Donna Ockenden.
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust has apologised for the mistakes made with the SAR but Natalie said families must feel confident their personal information is safe.
She said: "There needs to be more than an apology, they need to show that change is happening and it's not going to happen again that they've put the right tools in place to prevent it from happening."
"There's a lot of people now wanting medical records, how many more families is it going to happen to because we've got no evidence that it's not going to happen again."
Natalie said something that should have helped her made sense of her son’s death has left her traumatised.
She said: "That's all we have of our son, is his medical records, that's all we have left now and to know that that could be potentially sent to other families.
"That’s sensitive information and it's my son's information and it shouldn't happen."
In a statement, Anthony May, Chief Executive at Nottingham University Hospitals said: "I would like to apologise for mistakes we have made with their Subject Access Requests (SARs), it is totally unacceptable.
"We do have processes to ensure the quality of our SARs, but these fell short of what we would expect in these cases. I have now commissioned an urgent review of our Quality Assurance processes.
"I recognise the importance of timely and accurate responses to these requests for the families involved in the Independent Maternity Review. I am committed to improving this area of our work and while we have made some improvements, there is more to do.
"So far, we have restructured the team and have 14 new colleagues joining us to help improve the timeliness of our responses, balancing this against ensuring quality and accuracy.
"The process for requesting access to health records is also under review.
"More generally we are looking at ways to improve our support for families affected by the Independent Maternity Review. I intend to bring some of this detail to our Annual Public Meeting on 18 September."
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