How to Avoid ICO Fines with ProcessFlows

The NHS sends out millions of faxes every day, most containing sensitive and confidential information.

The sheer amount a data travelling back and forth, across networks and between machines, makes the NHS particularly vulnerable to inevitable human error and technical glitches letting any number of these important documents slip through the net; for the Information Commissioners Office any number is just too high.

Data protection has always been taken extremely seriously in the UK, any lapses are thoroughly scandalised in the media, especially when it comes to our public services. Organisations like the NHS have a responsibility to uphold impeccable standards when it comes to protecting their patient’s personal and sensitive information. This means when failures occur, hefty fines and bad reputations inevitably follow.

In 2012 Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust was fined £325,000 by the ICO for a data confidentiality breach – the largest fine ever issued. The NHS simply cannot afford these kind of fines, so they must take every precaution when it comes to protecting their data.

Manual faxing presents a host of ways information may be misplaced – from mistyping the destination number, to sending to an overloaded machine, to simply being lost amongst other faxes if the recipient is not there to collect it when it’s sent through.

Secure network faxing removes all these possibilities – not only saving money, but also improving efficiency, increasing security and providing an important audit trail to fully document and track the life of a fax.

Outgoing faxes can be sent from any network device, the user chooses a recipient from a centralised and approved address book and faxes can be held for approval if necessary.

Incoming faxes can be delivered to wherever is appropriate, whether that be to the desktop client, to an email inbox, (desktop or mobile) or to a shared multi-function device where secure release means only the intended recipient can collect the fax.

To find out more about how secure networked faxing can save time, money and help you to avoid costly mistakes,  give us a call on +44 (0) 1962 835053 or email enquiries@processflows.co.uk and and take a moment to watch our short video below…