A HEALTH board is apologising to scores of people after a data breach led to the personal details of transgender patients being circulated.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde alerted the Information Commissioner and launched their own investigation after a member of staff sent an email about a forthcoming event without hiding the addresses of all the recipients.
It meant the addresses of 86 people, understood to be transgender patients at the Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow, were visible, with some containing details such as names and dates of birth.
A spokeswoman for the health board said the breach, which happened on Monday, was a result of human error.
She added: "The member of staff sending this email made the unfortunate error of attaching all the email addresses of the patients in the one email.
"Patient confidentiality is of the highest priority and we are extremely concerned that this breach has occurred as a result of human error.
"We have already made the Information Commissioner aware of this issue and have been guided by him."
Dr Pauline McGough, consultant in Sexual and Reproductive Health at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, added: "We are urgently taking the appropriate steps to contact the individuals concerned and will apologise unreservedly to them for any distress this may have caused.
"We will investigate this issue fully and take appropriate steps to ensure this does not happen again".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article