Another major trust sacks staff over snooping

Members of staff from yet another NHS trust have been sacked for inappropriately viewing patient medical records, HSJ can reveal. 

Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust told staff last week it had dismissed five staff and has since told HSJ the patients whose records were viewed had been told, as had the Information Commissioner’s Office.     

The trust said the dismissals had taken place in recent months. Sky News has reported CUH is also investigating why 40 members of staff accessed files belonging to a three-year-old attacked by a crocodile in a zoo last week.

The latest snooping revelations come just days after the ICO declared that the number of cases of NHS staff viewing patients’ records without legitimate reasons had become a “worrying trend”.   

ICO boss Paul Arnold made his remarks just hours after HSJ revealed more than 1,400 reports of “unauthorised access” to patient data had been disclosed to the watchdog since 2019. 

This also follows staff inappropriately accessing the records of the victims of the 2024 Southport attack, as revealed by HSJ last month, and similar intrusions happening to the records of the Nottingham stabbing victims in 2023. 

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Source: HSJ, 26 June 2026