“Confidential patient details were thrown out in the wrong bin at Peterborough City Hospital, breaching data laws.

“An investigation has been launched by Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust after a member of staff failed to put the details of 53 gynaecological patients in the confidential waste bin. The details include name, address, date of birth, GP, clinical condition and treatment plan of the patients who were seen at the women’s and children’s unit of the hospital.

There is no evidence that this confidential waste was put into the clinical waste stream, but that is far from uncommon. Contractors are often happy to assist a client with paper disposal, perhaps when a particularly large load if to be discarded as a GP clears their old records. After all, it can go into yellow or orange sacks – there are plenty of those – and will be shredded by the contractor, with or without notional processing through an ATT process. Perhaps it will go straight to a clinical waste incinerator.

This bending of regulations is too often seen as a help to clients of no great impact. However, failure to manage confidential paper waste properly can and will lead to a fine, as should the inappropriate processing of wastes using an inappropriate procedure that would sit far outside permitted operations.