Treatment disrupted as trust suffers major data loss

A major IT incident at an acute trust is disrupting treatment for eye patients after a significant data loss, it has emerged.

Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals Trust chief executive Richard Beeken revealed to his trust’s board that a data loss incident in December had “impacted on staff and patient care” after disrupting 20 systems across the organisation.

Recovery of the full data set for patients receiving treatment at the Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre is still under way, and some have had operations postponed.

Despite the incident, ophthalmologists are continuing to see the majority of patients, Mr Beeken said, telling HSJ: “[Numbers affected] are being kept to a minimum through the extraordinary efforts of the clinical team who are putting in extra hours to reassess each patient’s needs.”

Scanning continues in the majority of cases and the trust is pressing on with recovery work for all historic images and patient contact details, though leaders believe the chances of 100% data recovery are “still slim”.

No patient data was extracted during the incident and the information commissioner was made aware.

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Source: HSJ, 10 January 2022