Ms Lucas\u2019s Taylor Swift-themed dance class<\/a> on July 29, 2024, and attempted to kill 10 others. Some of the injured were treated at Aintree Hospital, Liverpool.<\/p>\nAn information-access audit carried out by the trust in the days following the incident showed 48 staff accessed the records of the victims without good reason, the Health Service Journal (HSJ) reports.<\/p>\n
Despite the trust reporting the breach in August 2024, it did not tell the victims because of the \u201cpsychological impact\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Devastated and horrified\u2019<\/p>\n
Ms Lucas, who organised the dance class and now campaigns against knife crime, said: \u201cI am absolutely devastated and horrified that my privacy has been invaded when I was at my most vulnerable.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing will take away my gratitude to the staff who saved my life, but 48 people not involved in my care abused their position of trust to access the files of victims who have suffered unspeakable trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThe decision to keep this from me for almost two years is a new low. I am speaking out as I want this scandal and the attempted cover-up by senior management exposed for what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicola Brook, a legal director at Broudie Jackson Canter, who represent three survivors including Ms Lucas at the Southport Inquiry, said the breach was \u201ctruly unbelievable\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThis is more than a few bad apples, when it was 48 different members of staff… That speaks to a culture and one that will only change if there are real consequences for those responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Sumner, UHLG\u2019s chief executive, said the trust had made the decision not to inform the patients involved after \u201ctaking into consideration the potential psychological impact it may have upon them at the time\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe are sincerely sorry for any distress that may have been caused to the patients that were under our care and who trusted us to look after them when they were most vulnerable.<\/p>\n
\u201cBreaches of patient confidentiality are inexcusable and undermine the hard work of those teams who sought to provide the highest standard of care to these patients after they experienced such traumatic and life-changing events.<\/p>\n
\u201cStaff who were found to access patient records were subject to HR disciplinary processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Fully transparent about action taken\u2019<\/p>\n
Mr Sumner added that the trust had \u201cnotified the relevant regulators and professional bodies\u201d, including the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office and was \u201cfully transparent about any findings and actions taken\u201d.<\/p>\n
An ICO spokesman said: \u201cPeople need to trust that their medical information is safe and only available to healthcare staff who need to use it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone inappropriately accessing information in this way may face disciplinary action or even criminal prosecution in some cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cUHLG spoke with us after identifying alleged inappropriate access to medical records by staff, and we provided support to the trust as it carried out its internal investigations and disciplinary processes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t intend to start a criminal investigation into anyone for breaking data protection law at this time but we always keep this under review should new information emerge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a wider issue across the health sector that we are working to address.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of NHS staff improperly accessed the medical records of Southport attack victims. University Hospitals of Liverpool Group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,708,50,200201,2762,5438,56,225,54,55],"class_list":["post-585881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-liverpool","tag-news","tag-nhs-national-health-service","tag-southport","tag-standard","tag-uk","tag-uk-news","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}