24,000 letters to patients lost by NHS hospital

Newcastle Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust blames computer error

Martin Wilson, COO for Newcastle Hospitals has issued a public apology after a BBC investigation revealed that 24,000 doctors' letters were not sent to patients.

The issue is, in the words of Mr Wilson, "significant," and dates back to 2018. Some of the letters still haven't been sent. He also said that the Trust was taking "immediate steps to address the issue".

"If any concerns are identified, we will inform patients and their GPs directly," Mr Wilson said. "We are taking this issue very seriously and are working quickly to put things right."

Whilst a majority of the letters are relatively routine, explaining what steps patients should take to support their recovery after being discharged from hospital care, some are written by specialist clinics making care recommendations. This mans that in some cases, crucial test results including scans, blood tests and X-rays and information about what to do next might have been missed by patients.

According to the BBC, the problem occurred with letters that required a secondary sign off from a senior clinician. If that clinician failed to change their user status to "signing clinician" the letter would remain unsent, languishing in a document folder. A source at Newcastle Hospitals told the BBC that consultants had complained about the electronic patient record system for years, claiming it was slow and hard to use but their concerns had gone unheeded.

Nonetheless, whether this is a computer error or human one, is very much a moot point. It can certainly be viewed as another event in a long line of failures related to public sector digital infrastructure and apparent ignorance of how best to use that infrastructure for the benefit of the public.

The letters would have remained undiscovered had it not been for a routine inspection by the regulator - the Care Quality Commission (CQC) earlier this year. Employees at the trust had raised concerns about correspondence delays and the subsequent review of consultants showed that most had unsent letters in their electronic records.

Sarah Dronsfield, the CQC's interim director of operations in the North, said:

"We took immediate action to request further detail from the trust to understand the extent to which people may be at risk, and evidence of the steps being taken to review the impact on patients, ensure people are safe and mitigate any risk of avoidable delays in treatment going forward."

"The trust has submitted an action plan and volunteered to provide weekly updates on its progress against that plan. We have received assurance to address our immediate concerns."