NHS breach helpline left staff carrying a ‘significant emotional burden’

An independent review of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust data breach, which exposed sickness absence and health data for 7,715 staff after a spreadsheet was published in a Freedom of Information response, has found that staff drafted to run the breach helpline were given a day’s notice and carried a significant emotional burden. The helpline, expected to run for two weeks, operated for 11 weeks, and many call handlers learned their own data had been exposed while staffing it.