Almost £130,000 worth of equipment went missing from medical facilities in Tayside and Fife in the space of a year, it has emerged.
The vast majority of that amount was from Tayside, where items valued at £111,619 were lost or stolen in 2009-10, compared to a figure of £16,494 for Fife.
A total of £1.13 million worth of equipment went missing across Scotland, almost double the previous year’s figure leading to claims the health service is being targeted by criminals. The figures were obtained by the Scottish Labour Party, who claimed the items stolen could include laptops containing “sensitive” patient information.Crime fallingBrian Main, the site manager for Ninewells Hospital, confirmed a laptop had been stolen, but said internal figures show crime is falling across NHS sites in Tayside. He did concede more needed to be done and urged staff and patients to step up their own personal security measures.
He said, “Just between Christmas and New Year we had a ground-floor office broken into, but the only window they went for was the one with a laptop left on the desk. That was taken and everything else left because it was an easy take. Would that have happened if the laptop was put in a bag in a cupboard at the back of the room? I would suggest not.”
He added, “The number of incidents of thefts in NHS Tayside premises has reduced significantly over the past few years. The majority of thefts in our hospitals are non-medical items. We work closely with Tayside Police on implementing new security measures, such as increased numbers of CCTV cameras and security access doors.”
Labour health spokesman Dr Richard Simpson said, “I have been told by individual health boards that the items taken from NHS premises include laptops, which may hold sensitive patient information, along with valuable medical equipment and even hospital furniture. We simply cannot afford for this to continue and I am calling on the Scottish Government to take urgent action to ensure that the criminals are caught and expensive equipment stays where it belongs.”Rigorous reportingThe government said the numbers may have been higher due to more rigorous reporting of losses and a “high value of stock write-offs” of medical products.
An NHS Fife spokeswoman said, “NHS Fife has appropriate security measures in place on all sites to ensure the safety of patients and staff as well as hospital equipment and private possessions.”