NHS Trust sends Baby Birth Registration Form Home with wrong mother

Discovery

Irvings Law have successfully represented a client in a data breach compensation claim against Mid-Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust; the client wishes to remain anonymous for the purposes of this case report and as such will be referred to as ‘AS’.

AS was under the care of Mid-Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust in regards to her pregnancy and later, the birth of her son. Following this, AS was advised by staff that they had erroneously sent her baby’s birth registration form home with another new mother. The birth registration form contained the following information:

• AS’s name
• Date of birth
• Address
• Contact information
• Marriage status
• Ethnicity
• GP and Hospital Information
• Birth details of the child

Representation

AS sought specialist data breach lawyers to represent her for this breach and so she instructed Irvings Law and Yvonne Dobson; a Solicitor in their Data Breach Department whom offered no win, no fee terms to AS without hesitation. Yvonne then submitted a Letter of Claim alleging that the Trust had breached the Data Protection Act 2018, General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), confidence and also misused her private information when invading her privacy.

Resolution

In response, the Trust accepted liability and made a low offer to AS to settle her claim. Given that the offer was derisory, Yvonne advised AS that this should be rejected and a counter-offer made. After various negotiations following this, settlement was reached in the sum of £2,000.00 plus legal costs.