Campaigners claim 100,000 non-medical staff can access NHS records

More than 100,000 non-medical staff in NHS trusts have access to confidential files, campaigners have claimed.

The information, obtained by the Big Brother Watch through the Freedom of Information Act, suggests that administrators, porters and IT staff are able to access records on paper or online.

Immediate access was defined as those staff capable of viewing a patient’s name, date of birth and recent medical history, without the patient’s consent or the signature of another member of staff.

The campaign group, which based the figure on 140 responses they received from acute hospital trusts across the UK, claimed it demonstrated “slack security”.

Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, added: “The number of non-medical personnel with access to confidential medical records leaves the system wide open for abuse.”

The Department of Health acknowledged there was an issue but suggested that the Big Brother Watch figures did not paint an accurate picture, saying that the report confuses paper files and more modern electronic systems for which access is strictly controlled.