A further 15 members of staff at the Nottingham hospitals trust have been sacked for inappropriately accessing the medical records of the victims of the 2023 Nottingham attacks. The trust announced the dismissals on Friday 16 October, and says it has informed the victims' families, the data protection regulator and Nottinghamshire Police.
Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates were fatally stabbed in Nottingham in June 2023 by Valdo Calocane, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2020. Earlier this year, final written warnings were issued to 12 staff members over the same access.
The trust is working with the professional regulators for doctors and nurses, which have the power to remove staff from their registers. It is introducing a system that monitors access to records continuously, flags suspicious behaviour and sends automated alerts, and is educating staff on appropriate access.
The trust's medical director, Dr Manjeet Shehmar, said there is no excuse for accessing a patient's records without a legitimate reason. Grace's father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, said he was appalled and that it was time to get a handle on these failures. Barnaby's mother, Emma Webber, described the access as voyeurism of the worst kind.
