A hospital discharge form containing "sensitive" medical information about an elderly nursing home resident was found on the counter of a supermarket in Donegal. But the HSE employee who admitted mislaying the form was awarded €5,000 in compensation after she was dismissed over the incident, according to an Employment Appeals Tribunal ruling published last week.

The form had been faxed through to the Áras Uí Dhomhnaill nursing home owned by Mulroy Healthcare in Milford, Co Donegal, where the elderly woman was due to take up residence after being discharged from hospital. It contained the patient's name, age, address and medical background. Julie Jordan-Abel, who worked in the nursing home, admitted that she had taken the form, photocopied it and subsequently mislaid it but explained that she intended to bring it over to the patient's son who was a family friend.

She said she thought the form was in her bag for almost two weeks before she was told by the matron of the nursing home that it had been found in the super­market. She accepted that it should have been put in an envelope and treated confidentially.

When asked why she needed to have access to medically sensitive information addressed to the matron of the nursing home, Jordan-Abel said the patient's son would normally have had a copy of the form as he was next-of-kin but the matron was not around at the time to give it to him. She said she was doing the son a favour as a friend and was not trying to hide anything.

A director of Mulroy Healthcare admitted to the tribunal that the "nursing home and the HSE did not have a good relationship and they were worried that the lost document had been a set-up". He added that he was relieved when it emerged this was not the case.

The HSE conducted an "unannounced full inspection" of the nursing home three weeks after the form was found and had raised the issue of the breach in confidentiality. Initially, the nursing home officially warned Jordan-Abel, then sought to demote her by offering her old job back as a carer and eventually changed it to summary dismissal.

While accepting that the disciplinary process may not have been perfect, the nursing home argued that "in this case the substantial issue, ie the copying and removal of a sensitive medical document and the losing of same in a public place, outweighs the procedural defects".

But the tribunal disagreed, saying the "sanction of summary dismissal was disproportionate to the offence".