THE company set to manage health records for Worcestershire’s hospital patients lost files containing the details of 600,000 employees in the US, it has been revealed.

Iron Mountain lost computer tapes containing personal information of Time Warner employees in March 2005, leading to a US secret service investigation.

That is the same number of files the company will manage on behalf of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust when it takes over the management of patient records in October.

Iron Mountain also lost tapes containing the social security numbers of about 17,000 current and former employees of the Long Island Railway company during a routine delivery in early April 2006.

However, both the hospital trust and Iron Mountain insist patient records will be safe.

“Protecting our customers’ information is paramount to our core business,” said a spokesman for Iron Mountain.

“As industry leader, Iron Mountain has 57 years’ experience in protecting and storing information globally.”

They added: “Iron Mountain’s reliability rate for handling of back-up tapes is greater than 99.99 per cent.”

The company refused to comment on the previous losses in America.

Iron Mountain, whose European HQ is in London, will transfer all the paper files containing details of Worcestershire patients into a digital format so they are available at the touch of a button for medical staff.

At present, paper files have to be delivered to the county’s three acute hospitals from a warehouse in Hampton Lovett, near Droitwich.

This warehouse will close ahead of the files being moved to another warehouse in Erdington, north Birmingham in February 2009.

The trust has yet to make it clear what will happen to the old paper files once they are transferred to a digital format or when the transfer will be complete.

A member of staff at the record office, who asked to remain anonymous, was outraged at the revelation.

They said: "We feel the trust are wrong to put their trust in this company."

However, a Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman said a rigorous selection process had taken place.

“In order to continue to offer fast and efficient provision of health records for patients, the trust is moving to digital case notes,” they said.

“As part of this process the trust has undertaken a rigorous evaluation process of a number of tenders covering all aspects of security and confidentiality before selecting Iron Mountain as the preferred bidder for the contract.

“All patient data will be held digitally on Worcestershire NHS premises and governed by strict NHS policies and procedures for the security of electronic patient data.”