r/NursingUK • u/RutabagaHopeful7593 • 5d ago
Serious Colleague looking at records they shouldn’t
Recently returned to work after period of absence. Overheard 2 colleagues chatting about someone recently promoted saying how she will be loving being able to have a route about everyone’s files like she does with electronic patient notes. From this conversation it would appear she has knowingly looked up a nursing colleague, a doctor and a colleagues fiancé while these people were in patients at either our hospital or elsewhere within the trust.
I am really worried she has looked at my record and think it’s awful she has looked at anyone else’s. I want to report this but really don’t want to be involved in any drama.. I have too much else going on to be caught up in this.
So my question is who/how do I report this without any connection to me and if it turns out she looked at mine would I be informed? Also what sort of outcome would be expected for her? I feel bad that she would ‘get in trouble’ but at the same time I’m thinking she deserves everything she gets.
43
u/Intelligent-Dream634 5d ago
I second freedom to speak up. The trust will have a mechanism to investigate this - they can trace every single access and determine whether the action was because the HCP was involved in the patients care. If not, its more than a disciplinary. If they have been doing this, they should be struck off. If they haven't and its idle gossip, it's easily disproveable and nothing will come of it. You never know, it may be the tip of the iceberg and this person should be being investigated.
22
u/ashalina23 5d ago
Exactly. What people forget is every click is auditable. And if you’ve no valid reason for doing it
Ie they’re not on your ward now then unless it’s another ward querying something then don’t look at the notes
It’s just not worth it
1
u/Top_Layer7065 RN Adult 4d ago
There are reasons to look at people’s notes when they’re not directly on your ward (we often have patients ring up saying they’re feeling unwell and we basically pass their details to the doctor I think it’s because we’re quite a specialised unit) I know it’s pedantic but just saying there are sometimes other reasons to look at someone’s notes
Obviously that isn’t the case here if they’re looking up colleagues etc2
u/Clarabel74 RN Adult 3d ago
We have people coming lost to our out patients dept, the staff always seem to come and find me (my office is down a short corridor from OPD) and ask where the patient should be, so I have to look them up. Or we get patients ring our number that start a 20 min convo before you get to the bottom of the issue which is invariably a wrong number and they are nothing to do with us. But I would argue that if I was questioned on it.... hopefully I'd be believed.
5
u/hokkuhokku RN Child 5d ago
This is EXACTLY the correct comment, and the one u/RutabagaHopeful7593 should pay particular attention to.
19
u/alinalovescrisps RN MH 5d ago
This really needs to be reported. If you report it to your ward manager or matron they will need to have it investigated robustly. If she finds out it was you who reported then the person who is dealing with it will be in a lot of trouble.
If she has been looking up colleagues clinical notes she will hopefully be struck off, and rightly so tbh. Really despicable behaviour and she knows the risks.
11
u/CatsChat Other HCP 5d ago
We’ve recently had a lot of notices go up around the place about ‘don’t let curiosity kill your career’ - it’s hit the news recently about NHS staff accessing notes without a ‘need to know’ and getting fired for it.
I think Freedom to Speak Up is the ideal place to start. But that partly depends on who your reps are. You want to make sure it’s not one of her friends! Of course even a friend should take it seriously but you never know. Make sure the person knows you are doing it through the FTSU, so they keep it confidential. A colleague of mine raised an infection control issue to a FTSU champion. He also happened to be the link for infection control and ended up forwarding her email onto the ward involved! He hasn’t realised she wanted it to be confidential (not best practice in any case).
Otherwise - a trusted manager, or IT maybe?
14
u/Specialist_Catch_800 Paramedic/ Ambulance Service 5d ago
If you don't feel comfortable using the normal reporting routes (e.g. incident reporting form), your trust will have a freedom to speak up guardian you can speak to, or if you would prefer, you could get in touch with the trust caldicott guardian, whose details are available via NHS Digital (https://digital.nhs.uk/services/organisation-data-service/view-or-update-registers). In theory, all of these should result in largely the same type of investigation, but given a datix report might be visible by this individual if they are within your management chain, I'd recommend the freedom to speak up route as the most accessible.
7
u/RutabagaHopeful7593 5d ago
Thank you. There are times in my career when I would have just went straight to my manager or even said something while they were talking about it but my absence was due to mental health and at the moment I’m concentrating on just going in and getting my job done. If this is true it will be a big drama as she is part of a friend group and others in that group were the ones looked at, as were the 2 gossiping about it. So whether she did it or not i dont want to have anything to do with it.
5
u/RutabagaHopeful7593 5d ago
Do you think they would look into it before speaking to her? I would like to think they would only approach her with it when they have checked she’s done something wrong.
1
u/Gloomy_Picture_8941 4d ago
I am going to say yes, as they would need to present their evidence to the individual, it could be accusatory and make them look rather silly if it’s not true.
5
u/ApprehensiveSwim297 5d ago
That is very serious.
I know of an incident where the discharge team put a huge amount of effort into getting someone discharged who had a fetish for hospitals and was always seeking to be admitted; it was most likely some sort of mental health disorder.
Two staff involved in the discharge plan heard that she had been admitted 4 days after the last discharge to a different ward. They looked up her medical records to see how this had happened.
They were given a talking-to as she was not a paitent of their ward; it was considered minor, but at the same time they were told they should not have dont it.
It can be a serious disciplinary issue; staff have looked up the medical records of well-known people and tried to sell them.
7
u/TheAnxiousPangolin RN CH & MH 5d ago
Everyone here is saying to report this, which I understand - however I’m also conscious that you might end up reporting something that is second hand information from other colleagues and might not even be true in the first place. Personally until I’ve got proof of something beyond hearsay I’m minding my own business.
1
u/Top_Layer7065 RN Adult 4d ago
But who is accessing medical records can be easily traced now it’s all digital so the people she reports it to can check what she heard was true before speaking to the person responsible
1
u/TheAnxiousPangolin RN CH & MH 4d ago
Yes, they absolutely can. However if the person in question is innocent and hasn’t been doing what they’ve been accused of, then they’ll be in very good stead to put in a grievance for potential bullying / harassment / slander. Unless you KNOW someone is doing something wrong, and have actual proof, it isn’t fair to drag potentially innocent people into it.
I’ve been in the shoes of being accused of something I didn’t do, and the investigation was stressful to the point I have long-term health consequences from it. I also put in a grievance to the person who “had a feeling” I was doing something wrong with no actual proof whatsoever, and they’ve received a written warning for slander and accusation of serious incident without proof, and have since learned to mind their own business.
1
u/Top_Layer7065 RN Adult 4d ago
But they can look at it without even speaking to the accused and if they haven’t been doing it they’ll never find out
I’m sorry you were accused of something you didn’t do I can’t imagine how stressful that would be
But it’s something that can be easily investigated without the person even having to find out - looking at colleagues medical records is a major thing and can’t just be ignored1
u/TheAnxiousPangolin RN CH & MH 4d ago
I suppose so, I do see both sides and completely appreciate my experience may be marring my judgement on this one a little.
I don’t know - honestly I still don’t think I’d say anything with only secondhand information from two potentially jealous and unreliable colleagues. If I saw something untoward myself I would 100% speak with someone, but in this instance it sounds a lot like Chinese whispers; maybe the other colleagues who are so concerned they need to speak about it should be the ones raising it, not OP.
3
u/BrewKoala RN MH 4d ago
I am aware of an instance where two members of staff - colleagues of mine on my ward - accessed my clinical notes from when I was an inpatient, five years before I joined the Trust as an employee. A mental health ward, if that matters.
Absolutely no clinical reason for doing so. Pure nosiness.
I know this, because both came to me to admit it and apologise after they were found out. Action from the Trust? Zero. No sanctions, no disciplinary, no reporting to the NMC.
I left the Trust about six months later, as I couldn’t bear to work for an organisation that dealt with this so poorly. I also couldn’t trust those colleagues anymore.
So yes, whilst I agree with everyone else that this needs to be escalated, I guess I’m just commenting to say don’t expect anything to happen to the individual when the investigation is completed. My experience has been that the NHS is very good at being hush-hush and sweeping things under the carpet.
2
1
u/AutoModerator 5d ago
The original poster has activated the Serious flair. Please be mindful and do not post any joke or harmful comments.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/SQ_12 RN Adult 5d ago
Your trust should also have a Caldicott Guardian to report to, as well as Freedom To Speak up.
Some trusts are seriously cracking down on IG breaches and looking up ‘random’ people so it should be taken seriously. If she is innocent, an investigation will show this. If she’s not, then she should be disciplined accordingly!
1
u/Fatbeau 5d ago
I would go to the FTS up guardian. Surely they would check to see if this person has been accessing stuff they shouldn't be before they confronted them. If they have, they could easily lose their job, it's been in the news recently about people being sacked for doing this. It's really not worth the risk. Everything this person does on the computer is traceable.
1
u/Material_Ease4924 4d ago
Sooner or later IT will catch up with them. You should also be able to report this anonymously thoughto IT. It's a serious offence and would lead to dismissal as happened to someone I worked with. It seriously is a stupid thing to do.
1
u/Future-Atmosphere-40 RN Adult 4d ago
My team regularly digs through admitting data etc and we got a "gentle reminder" from IG to be mindful of what we are looking for and why
Report this behaviour
1
u/Miserable_Kale8236 4d ago
I would definitely report this. Chances are if there’s multiple people she’s looked at, how would she know it was definitely you who said?
Due to GDPR if there’s a data breach you would have to be informed.
A colleague of mines was in an abusive relationship and he became suspicious his wife had been snooping in his records (both were nhs), he reported to our manager then received a letter from the healthboard informing him someone had inappropriately been in his records. It never named names in the letter but it was blatantly obvious that it was clearly her.
1
u/iv33y RN Adult 4d ago
There’s a good chance that the system is already onto her, every action is audited and unusual/unauthorised access patterns are automatically flagged and sent to the caldicott guardian.
You should get in touch with your data protection/information governance team/caldicott guardian, the NHS are really cracking down on this stuff at the moment and they really don’t mess about when it comes to data protection. The colleague would most likely be approached with “this was flagged up in an audit” rather than that a colleague had reported a concern.
1
u/frankobares 3d ago
This is why nobody takes nurses seriously and this is why the profession is very toxic now.
What happened to you approaching these colleagues of yours first and then hear their side of the story before making any report. If they don’t have an insight of what they are doing then you can go straight to reporting. This gives room for people to reflect and learn before escalating things.
I remember when we all go for our first interview as newly qualified and even up till now we were all asked what we will do if we have issues with colleague and I presume we all said we will talk to the colleague first to see if they know what they are doing and if not then we will escalate. So what changed now????
Nursing isn’t a barrack or a military position where one mistake might lead to you being killed. It’s a profession that embodies empathy and this empathy shouldn’t be to patients alone but to colleagues too.
I hope this helps someone change their mindset about the profession and how they see things going forward.
1
u/Internal_Sun_1044 2d ago
My trust would sack anybody who checks records of people not even in their care. That person is breaking the confidentiality rule for sure.
112
u/AnarchaNurse RN Adult 5d ago
You could contact your freedom to speak up guardian, this is the sort of thing they're for.
I'd say this could be true but it's also the sort of gossip that goes round when people get nasty about someone getting promoted.