Medical worker read confidential file because she was “curious”

A former medical records worker, sacked after she viewed a high-profile patient's confidential file, has lost her claim for unfair dismissal.

Cancer information officer Elaine Duncan, who was based with NHS National Services Scotland, admitted that, because she was ‘curious’ she looked at information about a well-known individual who had been in the news.

An Edinburgh Employment Tribunal heard that NHS National Services Scotland, a healthcare information group, was allowed on a consensual basis to access and search individual health boards’ confidential patient records, but only as part of their statutory function of collecting, collating and providing statistics from and to NHS Scotland.

All the information, relating mainly to people with cancer, was released on the understanding that staff did not breach patient confidentiality. Workers with NHS National Services Scotland were given unlimited access to individual health boards' confidential records at the health board premises.

Duncan, who was sacked for gross misconduct after more than seven years' service, viewed the file of the high-profile individual three times in all while working at the premises of Lothian Health Board.

Duncan, who is from Edinburgh, had to sign a statement each year saying she accepted the confidentiality and security policy. She was initially suspended pending an investigation.

She admitted she had read the documents in question out of curiosity.

The Tribunal said that, even if her dismissal was found to be unfair, her actions would have left her ‘substantially to blame.’