Advice on medical data loss compensation claims

You can make a medical data loss compensation claim if your private medical information has been lost by a healthcare professional or healthcare organisation. With medical data being so sensitive and personal, it can be disastrous for a victim if medical information falls into the wrong hands.

A recent study indicated that, although cyberattacks often affect more people and are far more widely reported, it is medical data loss and incorrect data disposal that can be a bigger plague in the medical industry.

Although medical data loss can affect fewer people at a time, data loss and incorrect data disposal cases can often be worse on an individual basis.

Medical data loss can actually happen very easily. The study gave one easy example of stolen laptops, where data being held on a hospital laptop, for example, contains medical data for patients. Although a thief who steals a laptop may not be looking for people’s private and sensitive medical records, the medical data is still lost, and it could still have a huge impact on the victim.

You don’t often hear about these kinds of breaches in the news given that network attacks often impact millions of people. I’m sure we all remember last year’s WannaCry attack that practically crippled a number of areas of the NHS, when cybercriminals actively targeted older and more outdated (and therefore less secure) systems. Medical data loss events do happen, and we have advised and represented victims of medical data loss cases that amount to data protection breaches.

Some case are so simple as to how they happen, but the impact can be massive. There have been instances where medical records or sensitive patient data has been accidentally left by a healthcare worker on public transport, or in a café. Healthcare workers have taken data outside of their workplaces – with permission, where work is to be conducted from home, for example – and failed to look after it properly.

How many of us have left something behind in a public place, or even in your house? A bag in a park? A wallet on a car roof? One of your shopping bags at the supermarket?

When the thing being left behind is private and sensitive medical data, the repercussions can be huge.

Has a healthcare professional or healthcare organisation lost your data?

If a healthcare professional or a healthcare organisation has lost your data, you may have a claim for medical data breach compensation, especially where the data has been lost.

If your private medical information has been left somewhere by accident, or has somehow gone missing when being moved around, or has been stolen on something like a laptop, you may have a case to make.

We understand that medical data is incredibly private, and we can usually assist when it comes to medical data breach claims. Please contact our medical claims team free from a landline or mobile on 0800 634 7575 for further help and advice.

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