[Dataloss] Laptops missing from London England Hospital

[Henry Brown]

 From the London Evening Standard http://tinyurl.com/5zbrfw

Laptops holding tens of thousands of patients' records have been stolen 
from a hospital and a GP's home, it emerged yesterday.

In the latest lost personal data scandal, the information was stored on 
the machines in contravention of NHS guidelines.

It was revealed that details of 20,000 patients were on six laptops 
stolen earlier this month from filing cabinets at St George's Hospital, 
in Tooting, South West London.

It is the fourth data breach the hospital has suffered in the past year.

The data includes patients' names, postcodes, hospital numbers and dates 
of birth and can be accessed if passwords are cracked.

Normally such information is stored on the hospital's central network, 
but because of technical problems it was being stored temporarily on the 
laptops.

It was also admitted last night that the medical histories of 11,000 
patients, along with their names, addresses and dates of birth, were on 
a laptop stolen from a GP's home in Wolverhampton.

The information was not encrypted as it was supposed to be, and is only 
password protected.

Following both thefts, the health trusts concerned have written to the 
patients affected and have informed police.

But they insisted there was no reason to believe the computers were 
targeted for anything but their monetary value.

[...]