Breach of Confidentiality ??

[poacher52]

Hi Everyone,
My son (aged 15) had been undergoing counselling with my Local County Council Children's services he was at the time living with my ex-wife and there were lots of disruption in his life, he was missing school and as I live ten miles from him I was spending loads of time travelling to my local town looking for him throughout the day.
My ex-wife had just finished a relationship and her former partners mother worked for the local authority but in a different department, she accessed my son's electronic records and passed on this information to her son.
The only reason we knew that his files had been accessed was because my ex's former partner used this information as a base for an argument a few days later.
We complained to the local authority through the official lines and received confirmation that an employee had accessed my son's files without reason, they offered an apology but upheld the complaint due to no evidence that the information had been passed on.
We asked for the complaint to be escalated to stage 2 as we were not satisfied with the outcome, but again the complaint was upheld ....
My son is now living with me and is back on track with school, but will now not speak to anyone from Social Services /NHS/Doctors due to him not trusting them
Do you think we have a case for Compensation/Damages on behalf of my son ?

[Kati]

Re: Breach of Confidentiality ??

[MENTION=8640]leclerc[/MENTION] might be able to advise (I've tagged him) xx

[leclerc]

Re: Breach of Confidentiality ??

Hi Everyone,
My son (aged 15) had been undergoing counselling with my Local County Council Children's services he was at the time living with my ex-wife and there were lots of disruption in his life, he was missing school and as I live ten miles from him I was spending loads of time travelling to my local town looking for him throughout the day.

My ex-wife had just finished a relationship and her former partners mother worked for the local authority but in a different department, she accessed my son's electronic records and passed on this information to her son.


The only reason we knew that his files had been accessed was because my ex's former partner used this information as a base for an argument a few days later.
We complained to the local authority through the official lines and received confirmation that an employee had accessed my son's files without reason, they offered an apology but upheld the complaint due to no evidence that the information had been passed on.
We asked for the complaint to be escalated to stage 2 as we were not satisfied with the outcome, but again the complaint was upheld ....
My son is now living with me and is back on track with school, but will now not speak to anyone from Social Services /NHS/Doctors due to him not trusting them
Do you think we have a case for Compensation/Damages on behalf of my son ?

I am quite annoyed really that we didn't see the complaint earlier because although Kati has asked me to give some advice, I think this is a breach of Data Protection Act 1998. Which department does she work for?
If she works for, say, the planning department, then she has no reason to access his social services file. Furthermore, in regards to the issue of Trust, it has been lost and that could have a significant affect on him. However, unless she argue with your son over it or unless she put it in writing then the difficulty the council has is one in which it is your word against hers. Pity we could not have argued DPA breach on the basis that she had no reason to access it.

I want to add one point here, we don't know whether she was disciplined at work for unauthorised access.

[poacher52]

Re: Breach of Confidentiality ??

I am quite annoyed really that we didn't see the complaint earlier because although Kati has asked me to give some advice, I think this is a breach of Data Protection Act 1998. Which department does she work for?
If she works for, say, the planning department, then she has no reason to access his social services file. Furthermore, in regards to the issue of Trust, it has been lost and that could have a significant affect on him. However, unless she argue with your son over it or unless she put it in writing then the difficulty the council has is one in which it is your word against hers. Pity we could not have argued DPA breach on the basis that she had no reason to access it.

I want to add one point here, we don't know whether she was disciplined at work for unauthorised access.

Hi Leclerc,
Thanks for your reply, the worker in question works as a Senior Youth and Community Development Officer in an office approx 3 miles from the Family Assessment Support team where my son was being interviewed.
Here is an extract from one of the letters we received back following our complaint

"I can inform you that the worker in question admitted to accessing your son's electronic records without reason to do so, however she does not accept that she shared this information with her son. unfortunately we are unable to evidence that the information was shared and therefore cannot uphold this part of your complaint.
Please accept my sincere apologies that this situation occurred, however please be assured that the matter was treated as a disciplinary issue and was fully investigated by a line manager independent to Ms xxxxxx team, in line with the councils current disciplinary procedures. This has now been concluded. However, I am unable to share the outcome with you as unfortunately you are not entitled to that information. "

I also know that she still has her job as listed above, also if my son's files had not been used by her son in an argument then we would have had no reason to complain

[leclerc]

Re: Breach of Confidentiality ??

I suspect that she was warned in regards to the issue of Data Protection Act 1998 breach. To be honest, if the information that was accessed was ONLY known to social services and was in the form of a written email/letter then it would most certainly have been upheld in its entirety. The issue is about what information was not already out there.

To be honest, if it's verbal then it's a lot harder to prove without witnesses and without a record of it, ie taped conversation. I can say one thing, she won't access those files again because the issue has now been raised and has been dealt with.