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Personal details of 14,000 staff members leaked in Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust Data Breach

Legal Director Christine Sabino addresses the recent data breach case involving Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust (LUHFT) that Hayes Connor are acting on.

  • Hayes Connor act for a large claimant group in relation to the data breach by LUHFT
  • If you were affected by the LUHFT data breach, contact us now to add you to our Claimant action
  • We have commenced action against LUHFT on behalf of a large number of employees affected by this significant breach of personal data

The LUHFT data breach saw the personal details of 19,400 staff members leaked via email.

Staff members who were affected by the LUHFT data breach were contacted by trust executive James Sumner, informing them that their personal information was ‘unintentionally shared’.

A file, which was included in a hidden tab in the email, contained private information such as names, addresses, National Insurance numbers, salaries, dates of birth, genders and ethnicities.

In an official statement regarding the breach, Sumner said: “We have apologised to our colleagues for this error and are providing them with the full information and support they need.

“The data was emailed to managers within the organisation, we set about deleting the email and the data file from our systems within an hour of the error being identified and action has been taken to prevent this from happening again.

“We have also commissioned an independent, external review to assist in how we establish shared learning from the experience. I want to reassure our patients and the communities we serve that we follow all the rules to protect their information and we take data security extremely seriously.”

He added: “We have reported this incident to the necessary authorities and will work with the Information Commissioners Office to implement recommendations from their review.”

Sumner has noted that letters will be sent to every individual who has been affected by the breach. There is no indication on a timeframe for this taking place.

If you have been contacted by LUHFT to inform you that your personal data has been compromised following the data breach, you can join our group action for compensation.

At Hayes Connor, our experienced team of specialist data breach solicitors are on hand to support anyone who has been affected by the LUHFT data breach. To find out more, and to discuss whether you will be entitled to claim compensation, please get in touch.

What to do if you are concerned about the Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust data breach

If you are one of the LUHFT staff members whose information has been compromised following the data breach, you should have been contacted by the hospital to confirm that this is the case. However, if you have not been contacted and you have any reason to believe that your data has been breached, it is important that you get in touch with the hospital as soon as possible.

Following any sort of data breach, including those which involve employee information being sent to the incorrect recipient, you should be wary of receiving any unexpected communications. If information falls into the wrong hands, you could be susceptible to phishing attacks, which are designed to extract further information from you.

There are a number of steps you can follow to reduce the risk of your data being used by cybercriminals. To find out more, read our helpful guide on what to do if your data has been stolen in a data breach.

If your confidential information has been sent to the wrong address in the LUHFT data breach, you may be able to claim compensation. This is something the team at Hayes Connor can help you with.

How Hayes Connor can help you claim compensation for the Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust data breach

Any organisation which stores your personal data is legally obligated to keep it secure. This means that, where mistakes are made and data is exposed to the incorrect recipients, anyone effected could be in a position to claim compensation.

At Hayes Connor, we have one of the largest teams of dedicated data breach specialists in the country. We have both a wealth of combined experience, and extensive expertise in handling a variety of data breaches, meaning we are well positioned to support you in making a claim.

We can take the time to clearly establish your personal circumstances and the impact of the LUHFT breach. We can use this to confirm whether you will be in a position to make a claim, as well as explaining how the general claims process works.

We understand that being the victim of any type of NHS data breach, no matter the context, can be extremely stressful. As such, we will take the time to provide close personal support and will ensure that the process remains as straightforward as possible at all times.

You can find out more about our expertise and how we handle data breach claims here.

To start a claim, you can use our online claim form.