Hospital loses vital cancer research to thieves
New HP box hadn't been backed up
Posted in Management, 23rd September 2009 10:45 GMT
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Police in Leeds are appealing for help tracking down a man suspected of stealing a computer containing developmental cancer research software that hadn't been backed up.
The HP desktop unit - described as containing "vital" original software - and a laptop were taken from the Bexley Wing of St James' Hospital at about 7.30pm on Sunday 2 August.
A man wearing a high visibility jacket and hard hat was caught on CCTV 15 minutes later wheeling the computers out of the hospital on a red trolley.
West Yorkshire Police suspect the man pictured right. After examining CCTV footage they believe the same man stole car keys from a staff room on 7 August.
A spokesman for St James' said the HP desktop was new and so the developmental radiotherapy software it contained wasn't backed up. He added that the theft had upset staff and may significantly delay their research.
Detective Sergeant Andy Dixon, leading the inquiry, said: "Someone may have bought a computer from this man and if that is the case I would urge them to get in touch with us.
"Information can be passed to us anonymously and my main concern is recovering this computer and the vital research it contains."
There's details of how to contact the inquiry here. St James' said patient data security had not been compromised. ®
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COMMENTS
@ Northern Monkey
I could be way out of line here, but if you're working every hour god sends, working so hard you are shattered would it not make sense to think "Hey, wait a minute, I'd better make some kind of record here so if some little shit nicks or sets fire to the computer I wont loose all this hard work i've just done"
Common Sense...so damn rare it should be a super power ;)
Why Steal from NHS
How can someone steal from the NHS? Crazy!
Paris - Dont Know!
Vital cancer research?
There's a lot of cancer research going on. No doubt the researchers feel that they are doing something important. But, how much of that research is really vital? Likely, equivalent research is being carried out elsewhere?
There is a lot of cancer research going on but very few real breakthroughs. We don't know which is vital (or even fruitful) until it has been proven to be useful or not.
This is a percentage game and if you lose some, then so what!
What's wrong here?
Let me guess:
1. incompetent IT drones - the competent ones won't work for the pittance the jobs pay.
2. incompetent pointy-haired bosses - see any Dilbert cartoon for details
3. managers who hold their jobs by virtue of filling some inane diversity quota
I begin to think that a good rule for organizations to follow is that a manager's salary is never greater than the 75th percentile of his non-managerial underlings' salaries. IOW, one out of four employees has a salary greater than his/her manager. This will keep managers chaste and humble, one hopes. [Excuse me: I wax sarcastic.]
Can we have some sympathy please...
...frankly, when you're working in a fast paced research environment like that, the analysis you're carrying out takes priority - when you're in til 10pm each and every night you tend to forget about the backups you haven't done due to sheer exhaustion. Yes, they probably should've carried some out. No, they didn't.
Do people just come on here to vilify since, due to their own perfection and the perfection of their working procedures, they have nothing to sort out themselves?
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