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This time the guilty party was the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust. The laptop - containing names, dates of birth, postcodes and treatment details of 21,000 patients - was stolen from a manager's car on 18 June.

The Information Commissioner's Office is reportedly investigating the loss and the manager involved has been suspended.

When asked by PC Pro this morning whether the Trust had now ensured that all laptops containing sensitive patient data had been encrypted, a spokesman told us: "It's not an area we're prepared to go into. We're not about to discuss our security measures."

It's the second time in recent weeks that the NHS has compromised patients' privacy on stolen laptops. Six laptops containing details of 20,000 patients - including 3,000 children - were stolen from St George's hospital in Tooting, London.

And last month, the Scottish Ambulance Service admitted details of almost 900,000 emergency calls had gone missing in transit.