CD Containing Records Of Over 38,000 NHS Patients Lost In Transit

London, England (AHN) - The U.K. continues to be bugged by vital data on CDs lost in transit. The latest incident ironically involves the medical record of over 38,000 National Health Service patients sent to the software company for back up in the event the information gets lost.

According to the U.K. Telegraph, the lost CD had data dating back a decade, believed to have been mislaid while enroute from London to the Sandown Health Center on the Isle of Wight.

A spokesman for the South Central Strategic Health Authority blamed the courier company for the loss. The delivery firm involved was City Link, which even garnered the Courier of the Year award in 2007 for reliability and customer service.

City Link is going through all its 92 depots in search of the lost CD, while all the 38,650 names on the CD have been notified of the incident. A spokesman for City Link said, quoted by the U.K. Telegraph, "We are naturally very concerned by the loss of our customer's consignment and a rigorous search for the parcel continues... We are doing everything in our power to resolve the matter and return the package as quickly as possible."

Fortunately, Sandown has a duplicate of the back-up tape, said Dr. Peter Randall, a senior partner at Sandown.

Prior to the incident, there had been embarrassing admissions by the government of data loss containing medical data, driver's license applications and details of court cases.