Confidential details about mental health patients are discovered in a filing cabinet sold on EBAY
Probe as sexual abuse and suicide attempts detailed in personal case files
NHS bosses have launched an investigation after confidential information about vulnerable mental health patients was found in a filing cabinet sold on eBay.
Amy Shotton, 24, paid £51 for 11 cabinets and seven chairs from a private seller the online auction site.
She was horrified when she discovered 16 case files detailing the sexual abuse of patients and their suicide attempts and a further 20 files with the names of other patients.
In total there were more than 60 pages of documents containing confidential records including bank details of patients with the former Wolverhampton NHS Primary Care Trust.
Amy said: "There were staggering details of intimate medical histories.
"It included names, addresses, phone numbers and even bank details.
"If I was a bad person I could have used this information and gone and befriended these people to scam them.
"If somebody else had got hold of this, it could have ruined lives."
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Amy has handed the documents over to NHS bosses who came to collect them from her in person.
The eBay listing by 'maxwellfinney' described the items as a "wholesale job lot filing cabinets with keys, adjustable computer chairs office".
Amy put in a winning bid of £51 and had the cabinets and chairs delivered to her home in Telford, Shrops last month.
She only found the sensitive files weeks after the cabinets were transported to her 32-year-old boyfriend Nick Helliwell's home in Halifax, West Yorks.
The former office worker, who is now registered disabled, added: "I was staggered when I saw them.
"I think it's frightening. It was the fact that some of the details were so harrowing.
"It was stuff that I wouldn't have wanted other people to know about if it was me. I really feel for those people.
"The information included psychological assessments and case histories. When I saw them I cried.
"It's the thought that people are living with a lot and they have finally found the courage to tell somebody what has happened to them, only to be betrayed by the information being left lying in an unwanted cabinet for someone else to find."
NHS bosses confirmed a "full investigation"; has been launched into the embarrassing blunder.
The Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said: "The trust can confirm that it has been informed about a possible breach of patient confidentiality.
"The facts of the case are not yet clear.
"We are carrying out a full investigation in conjunction with our partner organisations, the City of Wolverhampton Council and Wolverhampton Clinical Commissioning Group, to understand how this happened.
"We take patient confidentiality very seriously and apologise for any distress this has caused."
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