IT ERROR WIPES 11 YEARS OF MATERNITY RECORDS

The incident affected maternity record systems across multiple English hospital trusts. While the primary patient care information was successfully restored, the audit trail documenting who accessed these sensitive records during the 11-year period is permanently lost. Maternity records contain highly sensitive information including pregnancy histories, delivery details, and newborn medical data. The loss of viewing history creates gaps in accountability tracking and prevents hospitals from monitoring data access patterns. Hospital officials confirmed that patient data integrity was maintained and no information was corrupted or deleted from active records. However, the inability to retrieve access logs complicates efforts to verify compliance with data protection protocols and NHS information governance standards. The cause of the IT error has not been disclosed. Affected hospitals are reviewing backup and recovery procedures to prevent similar incidents.