Over half a million UK National Health Service (NHS) records went missing between 2011 and 2016.
When I first skimmed the headline, I was thinking “Another data breach…[yawn].” But, turns out it was all paper. 500,000 paper records went missing.
A private mail direction company sent the records to a warehouse. They had either been incorrectly addressed or the associated patients had moved surgery. Unfortunately, the records—including test results for serious illnesses—were abandoned at that point.
A review is underway to decide whether any patients died due to the missing documents.
You can see how databases are overlooked—the information is pretty abstract. But, a mountain of 708,000 documents (there were administrative documents as well)?! Who walked by that every day without asking questions?
