PCT’s e-mail error leaks patient details

A full investigation is underway into an e-mail error that led to confidential information about 92 patients being distributed from a primary care trust to 35 local organisations.

The details were circulated accidentally by Melton, Rutland and Harborough PCT in the East Midlands to organisations that routinely receive information about trust board meetings. These include the local press and council representatives.

A PCT spokeswoman explained to E-Health Insider that the information consisted of contact details and summaries about patients’ problems gathered when they had telephoned out-of-hours services. They were part of a document presented to the PCT board about the use of out-of-hours medical centres in Oakham and Market Harborough.

“Links to the information were included in graphs which formed part of the set of papers sent out,” she explained.

“Our immediate response was to phone people and recall the information and to write to all the 92 patients and set up a helpline so that they could call in with any concerns,” she said.

She said the PCT had also followed up with a letter to people who did not contact the helpline. In response, she said the PCT had received “a lot of understanding that it was an error”.

“There was concern about who might have had access to the information and what they might have done with it,” she said. “We were able to reassure people that we had asked for emails to be deleted.”