Medical records feared lost after Dr Gray's Hospital plumbing leak

The pipe blockage was above the records storage area at Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin

Medical records of several hundred patients are feared to have been damaged beyond repair after a plumbing leak at Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin.

The pipe blockage was above the records storage area at the Moray hospital.

NHS Grampian said there had not been any delays to patient treatment and it was working to establish how many records had been lost.

Industrial dehumidifiers have been put in place to dry the area after the incident on 15 January.

Alasdair Pattinson, general manager of the hospital, said: "The affected area has been deep cleaned and the process of drying the records is ongoing.

"We are still working to understand how many records have been damaged beyond repair.

"Once we have this information we will be in direct contact with those individuals affected.

"It is far too early to put an exact number on how many records this may be, but we suspect this will be several hundred."

'Seriously concerned'

Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross, who represents Moray, said: "Everyone in the area knows someone who has been a patient at the hospital in Elgin so they will be concerned that the records that have been destroyed beyond repair could be their own.

"That is why it is imperative for NHS Grampian to be fully transparent about this incident and the circumstances behind it. I am seriously concerned that any patients records could ever be put in a position where if something like this occurred, they would be left in a irretrievable state.

"They must urgently outline what robust measures will be - or better still - already have been put in place to make sure every effort has been taken to avoid any more records being destroyed."