CONFIDENTIAL patient medical records and a blank prescription pad have been found strewn across a Dudley clinic’s car park.

The shocking lapse in security over patients’ intimate medical details could land The Central Clinic, Hall Street, in trouble as the blunder breaks several data protection laws and regulations.

And the loss of the prescription pad is a breach of security as it can allow criminals to obtain huge amounts of prescription drugs which then can be sold on the street.

Luckily, a community-sprited patient found the documents and immediately handed them to the Dudley News.

The patient who found the papers, who did want to be named, said: “These papers and prescriptions should be kept very safe by the doctor and should not be thrown on the floor outside the surgery.

“I wouldn’t want my or my family’s medical details treated like this and I feel very sorry for the people whose files these are and the prescription pad could have been found by a junkie to get drugs illegally.”

Aneesa Farooq, one of the patients whose notes were found, was disturbed when she was told her medical details had been found in a car park.

The 19 year old said: “I can not believe that this is happening to me and I am only glad that my notes did not fall into the wrong hands.”

There are strict laws and regulations concerning patients’ medical notes and ensuring they are kept securely.

The clinic could be in hot water with the Government’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which could take action concerning strict data regulations being broken.

Dr Paul Brian Varney Brettell, whose name was on the prescription pad and Dr Touseef Safdar, a partner at the practice, apologised for the blatant breach of security.

Dr Safdar said: “I am deeply sorry for any data loss from our practice.

“I can only apologise to the patients concerned and assure the rest of our patients that we will now be looking hard at our processes to ensure this can never happen again.

“Having met with one of the patients concerned, I can appreciate how upsetting it has been to know that her records were not safe.”

He added: “I will be taking steps to understand how this could have happened in our practice and to learn from this to improve the quality of care which we can provide to our patients.”

Dudley Primary Care Trust have been informed about the security breach and are investigating.

Sarah Dugan, Dudley PCT chief executive, said: “We were very concerned to hear of this incident and are taking it very seriously.

“We are now working with the practice concerned to recover the medical records which were found outside the practice and to investigate how this loss occurred and to share with other GP practices any lessons learnt.”