This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Patients at risk over undelivered NHS mail
The National Audit Office (NAO) has criticised NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) after approximately 709,000 pieces of medical correspondence, including patient records and cancer test results, were lost.
NHS SBS was employed in the East Midlands, South West and north-west London to redirect mail for the health service, passing on documents that had either been incorrectly addressed or needed re-routing because the patient had moved to a new GP surgery.
In March 2016, NHS SBS revealed that it had discovered a backlog of approximately 435,000 items of unprocessed clinical and other correspondence. As of 31 May 2017, the NAO review of the backlog of correspondence found 1,788 cases of potential harm to patients - of which NHS England estimates the cost to be at least £6.6 million for administration alone, and is still discussing with NHS SBS how the costs will be split.
It has also been revealed that managers at NHS SBS had been aware of the clinical risk to patients since January 2014 but did not develop a plan to deal with the backlog.
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