An NHS nurse has been awarded £10,000 after her employer broke data protection regulations and accessed a private database to check if she was telling the truth about a pregnancy.
Julia Walker worked at South Tees Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in North Yorkshire in 2019 when she announced that she was expecting twins.
However after revealing the news, her colleague, Lauren Walker, who has no relation to her, checked a private database to view her records.
Julia told an employment tribunal she believed her colleague did it because she was sceptical about her pregnancy.
Lauren claimed she only looked at the records in order to find Julia's address so she could send flowers.
But the tribunal heard that the flowers never arrived at home or work.
Now Julia, who later suffered a miscarriage, has won a case against South Tees Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in North Yorkshire over contravention of the Equality Act 2010.
The tribunal heard Lauren accessed the confidential patient database in September 2019 and searched for her colleague's name before clicking on it.
The page she looked at did not contain any medical information.
Tribunal Judge Adele Marie Aspden said: "It transpired that the person who had accessed the database was Lauren. Julia was told this.
"She found that extremely upsetting. Lauren and Julia had been friends but Julia believed that Lauren had reacted with scepticism when Julia told her she was pregnant."
Lauren initially said she searched on the database to congratulate Julia on her pregnancy. But later said she wanted to send flowers to pass on her condolences once she heard Julia's sad news.
Judge Aspden said: "She did not drop off any flowers at Julia's home or send them to work.
"She says she thought better of looking at the database and then did not take a note of the address, but it is curious that she did not then find another way of sending Julia flowers if that had been her intention."
Julia sued her employer and Lauren for the incident and was awarded £8,800 as compensation for injury to feelings plus £1,304.68 in interest.
Judge Aspden said: "This was a confidential patient database. Every patient is entitled to expect that those with access to the database will respect their confidentiality."
A South Tees Hospital NHS Foundation Trust spokeswoman said: “Although the tribunal found that no patient medical data was accessed in this case which occurred three years ago, the trust strengthened procedures at the time to help prevent similar circumstances occurring in the future.”
