BOSSES at Taunton’s Musgrove Park Hospital are working to ensure confidential information is kept secure after a report claimed there were more “data breaches” there than in all but one other NHS hospital.

But they stress that the figures relate to “data protection incidents that were reported”, not just breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Serious breaches may involve staff revealing patient details or accessing their own records, although Musgrove did not reveal details of any of its cases.

Big Brother Watch – which challenges policies it sees as threatening our privacy, freedoms and civil liberties – said there were 534 breaches at Musgrove between 2011 and 2014 – only South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust fared worse, with 869 instances.

The organisation’s director Emma Carr said: “The information held in medical records is of huge personal significance and for details to be wrongly disclosed, maliciously accessed or lost is completely unacceptable.

“With an increasing number of people having access to patients’ information, the threat of data breaches will only get worse.

“Urgent action is therefore needed to ensure that medical records are kept safe and the worst data breaches taken seriously.”

A Musgrove spokeswoman said: “The figures provided as part of a Freedom of Information request were all data protection incidents that were reported, not just breaches of the Data Protection Act.

“We have a policy of recording all incidents where there might be a risk to the security of our data, so we can fully understand where we might have areas of concern as an organisation and learn from them.

“Many of the incidents recorded relate to potential breaches, such as where someone has had problems logging into a computer system or database, doors being left unlocked or someone incorrectly accessing information but not inappropriately.

“This doesn’t mean there was any wrongdoing, just there was a potential for a breach which needs to be investigated and understood.

“We take all incidents very seriously and are committed to working with all our staff to ensure we keep the information we hold secure, and only share it in an appropriate way with the correct people.”