I launched court action against NHFT for breaches of my patient confidentiality and won in court today. The case was for Dr Hirul Patel storing my medical records in an insecure manner, and for a complaint response signed by Angela Hillery, containing medical data along with my full name and address being inappropriately copied in to 4 leading figures at NHFT who had no part in my healthcare. After complaining and writing for 2 years and having their 2 separate solicitors and complaints managers tell me I was in cloud cuckoo land I actually won in court. They tried to gas light me the whole way through implying I was somehow off my rocker for even thinking they would have done anything wrong.
They wasted ridiculous amounts of the taxpayers money on solicitors and an expert barrister in GDPR from London, Jennifer Thelen, and lost on these 2 cases! James Howitt of DAC Beachcroft also put up a pathetic argument for these cases. Surely the NHS could have put this money to better use?! Ms Thelen also told the judge in the hearing, much to his dismay, that as a mental health patient with an anxiety disorder I was not allowed compensation as I am prone to get upset anyway. Such blatant disability discrimination coming from the representative of a mental Health Trust, was not permitted by the judge who retorted with the comment that NHFT should be even more careful with mental health patient's sensitive data because they get upset. The judge awarded me compensation.
Richard Wheeler stated that the CQC were very happy with the way they dealt with complaints but ironically for him they lost this case. We all know the CQC are only interested in whether an organisation has clean toilets or not so why he should put all his faith in something they said is absurd! NHFT insisted their complaints handling policy was totally above board but as the judge told them today, there was a less intrusive way of achieving the same result and reminded them that under GDPR the bar is set quite high. Sarah Ratcliffe the NHFT DPO all along insisted they had the right to do what they wanted with my data, was also proven wrong today.
As for Dr Hirul Patel, Dr Andrew Iles emailed him my medical records without password protection and Dr Patel insisted he was allowed to leave these for 2 years sitting insecurely in his inbox where they were at risk of being forwarded on to anyone and browsed at by himself with no record or log of him accessing my medical records at a whim. Again NHFT lost this in court as the judge condemned what NHFT had allowed him to do.
I'm celebrating tonight a victory against those who should have known better and should have looked after my rights and vulnerabilities.
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