HEALTH chiefs have revealed they have lost personal data on primary school children from seven Ashford primary schools taking part in a survey on obesity.

Parents were alerted to the loss of the data, which included names of pupils but not their addresses, last week via letters sent from the schools, which have not been identified.

The number of pupils whose details have been mislaid is relatively small but the Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust confirmed it had ordered an inquiry and implemented measures to prevent a recurrence.

The data was collected from about 340 pupils in reception classes in the seven schools and included personal information including their names, date of birth, height and weight.

The trust survey is aimed at tracking obesity levels.

'Thorough investigation'

The data was mislaid when it was e-mailed internally by trust staff involved in collating the information last September.

In a statement, Philip Greenhill, the trust's director of operations, said: "The data had been sent via our internal mail system in September 2007 and was discovered to be missing in October.

"A thorough investigation was launched in October, which identified that a very small proportion of the data was indeed missing - around two per cent of the total collected.

"The investigation team has now concluded the missing data will have been destroyed, as is common practice for undelivered internal mail."

He added the inquiry had made "several recommendations" to reduce the risk of it happening again and that the trust's Patient Safety Group would monitor the situation.

Kent County Council said it was satisfied by the trust's reassurances that measures were now in place to limit the risk of a recurrence.

In a statement, the council said: "We have been reassured by the PCT the details have almost certainly been destroyed. We are working closely with the PCT to make sure this can never happen again."