Number of patients at risk from NHS mail mistake revealed
pharmafile | June 27, 2017 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Medical Communications | Department of Health, Jeremy Hunt, NHS, NHS England
According to the patient records that have been examined so far, at least 1,700 may have been put at risk by the recent blunder that saw NHS correspondence held in a warehouse for a number of years. The problem was revealed in February, revealing that over 700,000 pieces of medical correspondence had been waylaid in a warehouse by the private company, NHS Shared Business Services (SBS).
SBS were employed to redirect mail for the NHS in 2011. When it began its work, there were 8,146 items of unprocessed correspondence – a worry of itself. However, six years later that number had rocketed to over 700,000 and meant that the NHS has had pay to millions for doctors to go through the correspondence to discover if any individuals were at risk from the mistake.
With two thirds of the mail checked, the likely number of patients potentially harmed is somewhere beyond 1,700. This figure will undoubtedly rise as more of the mail is sorted and there has yet to be any firm conclusions drawn about whether patients may have died as a result of the catastrophic blunder.
The cost of the investigation into the issue will rise beyond £6.6 million. One of the questions raised in the subsequent release of details is that SBS is 49.9% owned by the Department of Health. Not only does that draw serious questions about why the SBS withheld the information from the NHS but also why the organisation chose not to place anyone within the board of SBS, given it had an opportunity to fill two of the three seats.
Once the Department of Health was notified of the monumental backlog of correspondence, it chose not to reveal the error to the public. The justification of withholding the information was under the presumption that doctors would be inundated with worried patients, inquiring about correspondence.
Another worrying fact revealed from NAO’s report into the national blunder is its revelation that NHS England struggled to get SBS to help understand the full extent of the problem. It stated: “NHS England were dissatisfied with NHS SBS’s co-operation in understanding the facts and causes of the incident. NHS England did not consider that NHS SBS’s internal review gave it sufficient assurance that the cause of the backlog had been appropriately investigated and the causes clearly established. NHS England considered that NHS SBS was being obstructive and unhelpful in providing the access NHS England sought.”
The investigation into the backlog is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Ben Hargreaves
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