HIGHLY sensitive child protection papers are among scores of documents and computer records lost by Westcountry officials in the past three years.

The child protection case minutes – from meetings between social services, healthcare providers and the police – were lost by Devon Primary Care Trust in December last year.

It admitted the blunder – and 10 others – after a Freedom of Information Act request from the Western Morning News. It said the documents were sent in the post to social services but were never received.

Dr Virginia Pearson, director of public health at Devon Primary Care Trust, said: “The incident you refer to resulted in all staff being reminded of correct trust policies relating to safe procedures when sending patient information by post.

“Paper medical records must be sent by courier or Royal Mail special delivery service with track and trace and proof of delivery.

“We also have guidance on the use of courier services which includes the need to have any electronic data file created by an authorised person and encrypted in accordance with Department of Health guidelines. Should data be transferred on to a data memory stick, it is trust policy that encryptable memory sticks issued by the trust must be used at all times.”

In May 2007, an inadequately protected laptop computer was stolen from NHS premises in Truro. It contained data of employees of the  Royal Cornwall Hospital, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust, and Cornwall Partnership Trust.

In all, the records of 10,000 staff were exposed including their names, addresses, National Insurance numbers and bank details.

No incidents were recorded by any of the region’s 15 districts councils which deal with sensitive issues like council tax collection and housing.

Cornwall County Council revealed that there had been 20 incidents where birth, death or marriage certificates had been lost in the post.

In October 2007, two boxes of documents were recalled from a storage centre and did not arrive.  It was discovered they had been delivered in error to a destruction facility, where they were securely destroyed.

Two months later,  a box of documents was lost while being transferred to storage.  Ironically, the paperwork related to Freedom of Information Act requests.