Earlier this year, an investigation undertaken by the Office of the Information Commissioner (OAIC) found that the Pound Road Medical Centre did not take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information when it stored patient health records in a garden shed during renovations. The shed was subsequently broken into and the sensitive data was compromised, the majority of which was at least 11 years old and related to approximately 960 people who ceased to be active patients.

At some point, every specialist must complain about how their colleagues and clients “just don’t understand” what they do. But a particularly common version of this complaint today is the “recordkeeper’s lament”: Why don’t IT projects take record keeping requirements into account with new systems? How will we find records from these systems in 10 years time? Don’t these people know we are subject to record keeping legislation?

One of the recurrent themes at record keeping events is the frustration the record keeping community expresses at not having “a seat at the table”. I used to shift a little uncomfortably in my own seat because much of the frustration was directed at “IT people” like me.