A SENIOR hospital manager has been suspended after a laptop containing the personal data of thousands of patients was stolen from an Edinburgh car park.
The details, including names, dates of birth and treatment plans, were taken from the employee's car on June 18.
The data concerned patients connected to the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, in Essex, and a spokesman said a pol
ice investigation had been launched into the theft of its data.
"The computer contained personal information on several thousand of our patients, amongst many other files of less sensitive data," he said.
"The lists contained details including patients' names, their date of birth, postcode, hospital number and the hospital procedure the patient was about to undertake."
Peter Murphy, chief executive of the trust, wrote to apologise to the affected patients.
The trust spokesman added that he did not know why the laptop had been taken to Scotland or the exact location of the break-in.
He said the employee, who has not been named, is a "senior manager" of the hospital.
Police said no one had been arrested over the theft.
A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Police said: "We are investigating the theft of a laptop computer from a car in an Edinburgh car park on June 18.
"Our inquiries are ongoing."
The full article contains 225 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
