The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued NHS Fife with a reprimand following an incident which occurred at St Andrews Community Hospital earlier this year.
The statement from the ICO and their accompanying report is publicly available on their website here.
In response to the statement from the ICO, a spokesperson for NHS Fife said:
“Earlier this year an individual purporting to be a member of agency nursing staff attended St Andrews Community Hospital.
“The individual was only on a ward for a short period of time and left shortly after being challenged by a member of the nursing team. While the person was never alone with any patient, they did have access to a handover document containing information relating to patients on the ward.
“NHS Fife and Fife Health and Social Care Partnership, who operate the facility, immediately reported the incident to Police Scotland and also referred the incident to the Information Commissioners Office. The patients involved and their families were informed of this breach of security.
"We acknowledge the findings of the Information Commissioners Office, and have apologised to those involved.
"A range of additional measures were put in place shortly after the incident to prevent such a matter from occurring again in future. We have since carried out a Significant Adverse Event Review and a working group has been established to implement the recommendations of both the Information Commissioner and the findings of our own review across the entirety of NHS Fife."
