Friday 24 July 2015

DH miss the point and fail to apologise for breach of confidentiality

This is the full response I have received from the DH:

"Our ref: DE00000948527 
 
Dear Mr Dean,
 
Thank you for your recent correspondence to the Department of Health about the image used in a tweet posted on 17 July.  I have been asked to reply.

The Department has looked carefully at this matter and what took place was an entirely unintentional mistake.  The Secretary of State for Health’s sole intention was to celebrate some excellent clinical work he was grateful to have been able to see first-hand at University College London Hospital.

As soon as the Department was alerted to the mistake, the image was removed and replaced.
 
I hope this reply is helpful.

Yours sincerely,
 
Paul Larkin
Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries
Department of Health"
 
The DH totally fail to see the point of the complaint.  It is utterly irrelevant that the clear error was 'unintentional'.  Jeremy Hunt clearly breached patient confidentiality with his tweet and there has been zero consequence to this action.  We have not even seen the whiff of an apology.  Given Hunt's talk of candour and the way in which frontline staff are regularly punished for such clear breaches, it is utterly limp of the DH to write off such a breach in this manner.  It really says a lot about their incompetence and their failure to live by the rules which they are happy to destroy others with.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

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