Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has terminated 15 staff members who accessed medical records without authorization belonging to victims of a June 2023 attack in Nottingham. The incident involved three fatalities: Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19-year-old students, and Ian Coates, a 65-year-old caretaker. Valdo Calocane also attempted to injure three additional individuals during the attack.
Beyond the dismissals, the trust has issued 15 final written warnings and two first written warnings to other personnel. Those disciplined include doctors, nurses, registered healthcare professionals, and additional staff. Families of the victims were informed of the actions this week. Dr Manjeet Shehmar, medical director at NUH, stated that accessing patient records without legitimate clinical reasons is unacceptable and emphasized the trust’s commitment to investigating and penalizing such conduct.
This represents an escalation from May, when the trust had previously dismissed 11 staff members for similar unauthorized record access. Calocane received an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after pleading guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder.
The disciplinary actions follow a broader NHS England initiative announced last month by Sir Jim Mackey, who directed all trusts to immediately suspend staff suspected of inappropriately accessing patient records and revoke their system access. Mackey characterized such access as an “abuse” of trust and warned that staff could face career consequences and criminal charges. The directive was issued in response to multiple recent high-profile cases, including dozens of staff at University Hospitals of Liverpool Group who accessed records of victims from a 2024 Southport attack, and approximately 40 hospital employees who viewed records of a young child injured in a crocodile incident in Cambridgeshire in June.
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