Hospital laptops stolen

Two laptop computers have been stolen from an office at Central Middlesex Hospital in Brent.

Stolen on 14 January, the laptops held information on 389 local patients, including their names and hospital numbers. A spokeswoman for Brent teaching primary care trust said the laptops were not encrypted, but the database holding the patient details was password protected.

The spokeswoman said that, so far, there have been no reported incidents of fraud or identity theft from the information held on the database.

All affected patients have been informed via letter and there will be an internal investigation in addition to the police investigation. The hospital said in a statement: "We take patient confidentiality seriously and apologise for any distress this incident may cause."

The statement continued: "All staff have been reminded of the importance of not storing any personal data on laptops or other remote devices such as memory sticks."

Last week, the NHS admitted it had lost 4,000 smartcards - another in a long, ever-growing list of UK data breaches.

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