The trust that manages Liverpool’s major hospitals has admitted it does not know how many people accessed a major data breach that led to the personal information of thousands of staff being emailed to hundreds of people.
It was revealed last month how in December 2022, a file was sent by email to more than 450 managers at the Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust (LUHFT) - which includes the Royal and Aintree hospitals - which included the personal information of thousands of staff members including names, addresses, National Insurance numbers and salaries. James Sumner, LUHFT chief executive, confirmed to a meeting of the Trust’s board that the Information Commissioner’s office had determined no further action would be taken following the breach.
In his written board report, Mr Sumner said the breach arose as a consequence of the “unintentional sharing” of personal staff information with Trust managers, via email, during a file sharing exercise that was conducted to support management of payroll details as part of arrangements around strike action. Trust staff were informed by email on February 8 of the data breach with Mr Sumner issuing letters to those impacted.
