Medical records belonging to over 8,000 patients of a doctors surgery in Magherafelt, Co Derry, have gone missing. The incident occurred when the surgery sent a tape cartridge containing medical data to an IT firm based in London using a courier company. The cartridge tape was collected in December by the courier but it was reported that it failed to arrive. You can read more about the incident here and here.
When I regularly speak with GP’s about medical data on their computer systems they all share the same concern, losing the data to an outside source. The doctors surgery in Magherafelt most likely shared that concern and had taken precaution by ensuring the data tape had some sort of security protection. A GP from the surgery is quoted saying:
“The computer tape is security protected and requires a specialist programme which is normally only used by GPs and the data verification company in order to make any sense of the information on the tape“.
This sounds as if the medical data was encrypted but there again data encryption was not mentioned in any news articles which could be worrying for some.
If you are a GP or work in a doctors surgery does your practice have adequate data protection for medical records?
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