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ID theft fear for thousands of patients due to NHS data loss

Thousands of consumers in the UK are at risk of becoming victims of ID theft as a result of a series of data breaches by the National Health Service (NHS), it has emerged.

In the first four months of this year alone the NHS has experienced 140 incidents in which patient records were either stolen or lost, which jeopardises the principle of patient-doctor confidentiality, according to the information commissioner.

Commissioner Richard Thomas has slammed the health service following the breaches involving the loss of computers with medical records and encrypted discs with passwords taped on them, the Independent reported.

According to the newspaper, one incident involved a GP downloading sensitive details of 10,000 patients to a laptop that was insecure, which was stolen and is yet to be recovered.

Mr Thomas has said the breaches are down to careless attitudes by NHS staff and called on the Department of Health to improve the situation.

Recent research by database security company Guardium revealed that retailers' and the government's ability to keep consumers' details safe was a worrying issue for more than 60 per cent of consumers in the UK.

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