Patient record in charity cabinet

The file was found in a second-hand cabinet

A patient's medical file has been found in a filing cabinet sold in an Antrim charity shop.

A man bought the cabinet for £25 and later found the file wedged under a jammed drawer.

He told a local paper then passed it on to councillor Drew Ritchie, who handed it to the Northern Health Trust, which said it would investigate the matter.

Mr Ritchie said he was shocked such a file could have been lost: "These type of things shouldn't happen."

The trust said they were grateful the file had been returned.

"We will be investigating the circumstances around the loss of the file and will be informing the individual concerned and their family and all appropriate authorities," a statement from the trust said.

However it added "we strongly feel that the correct thing to have done in this situation would have been to return the file to any trust office or facility, a local GP, the police or indeed a public representative and not to a local newspaper".