A FULL investigation has failed to pinpoint how confidential hospital patient information was dumped in a bin.

As reported in The Bolton News, the documents, which contained names, ages and medical histories of 19 patients at the Royal Bolton Hospital, were discovered in a bin outside McDonald’s in Derby Street in May.

They were marked confidential, with instructions that they should be destroyed at the end of the shift.

The Bolton News returned the documents to the hospital.

Health bosses have now identified which ward the unsigned paperwork was from, but have been unable to determine which staff member had responsibility for the documents.

A meeting of Bolton Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee was told on Tuesday that a full investigation into the incident had now concluded. Lesley Doherty, chief executive of Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said ward staff in possession of handover sheets would sign the paperwork and then destroy it at the end of their shift.

She said: “We have been unable to identity which member of staff it could be.

It may even have been taken by a member of the public.

“We absolutely take accountability and responsibility for what happened.”

Mrs Doherty told the meeting that although this handover sheet, from April, was unsigned, the investigation had discovered from which ward it had been taken.

She said the hospital had contacted 18 of the patients named in the discarded document and that no formal complaint had been made.

She said rules would be reinforced to prevent it happening again.