NHS records leaked to flu staff

17 Aug 2009

Hundreds of call-centre workers drafted in for the swine flu hotline could have had access to confidential NHS staff information.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the hotline workers were given a special password to navigate a sensitive internal NHS website, which could be in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Delicate personal details such as National Insurance numbers, home addresses, dates of birth and scanned passport pages, could have been used fraudulently and professional details such as disciplinary complaints could also be viewed.

NHS Professionals is the body that runs the Government's pandemic flu service, with temporary medical and administrative staff being employed to ensure the in-demand service runs as smoothly as possible.

The company runs two of the swine flu call centres with 900 staff in Watford, Hertfordshire and 300 in Farnborough, Hampshire.

Anne Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Unison, said: "There's no excuse for such a fundamental breach of personal security. Action needs to be taken as soon as possible to make sure this does not happen again."

A spokeswoman for NHS Professionals would not confirm whether access to the confidential files had been granted.