A catalogue of health service security blunders, in which dozens of confidential patient details were lost or mislaid, has been revealed for the first time.

A Freedom of Information request has uncovered 34 separate incidents in Gloucestershire on which patient data has gone missing since December 2007.

The list of errors includes the loss of a laptop containing details of 50 medical trial patients and an episode in which a confidential health record about a baby was found on the floor of an admin office.

On other occasions, a private report was emailed to the wrong address and patient details were sent to a nursery by accident.

Coun Andrew Gravells, chairman of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Gloucestershire County Council, promised to look into the revelations in more detail.

He said: "The security of our personal medical records must be safeguarded at all times, and I know that this is something that the NHS takes very seriously in Gloucestershire.

"The Health Scrutiny Committee of Gloucestershire meets later this week, and I will raise these issues there.

"We need to be assured that measures are in place to ensure a reduction in the numbers of these types of incidents."

The catalogue of foul-ups came to light when Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust and the county Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust replied to a Freedom of Information inquiry.

The same request was sent to every council in the county and none reported any security slips in the last five years.

Gloucestershire police did not respond to the request.

A PCT spokeswoman said health chiefs supported an atmosphere of transparency at work and encouraged staff to report any incidents of data loss, however small.

She said: "NHS Gloucestershire takes issues of patient information security extremely seriously.

"All staff receive guidance regarding transferring data and ensuring that information remains secure.

"We recognise the importance of continually reviewing our procedures to maintain security of patient information, particularly in view of the thousands of patient records dealt with every day.

"The robust staff reporting arrangements we have in place are a major contributor to this and we recognise the importance of learning from any incident."