A WATCHDOG will take no further action against South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) after personal details of its staff were accidentally posted online.

Confidential details including sexuality, ethnicity and religion of nearly 3,000 of its staff were mistakenly published on the service's website in October.

Now the Information Commissioner's Office has ruled SCAS will escape punishment and is satisfied sufficient measures have been taken to prevent further breaches.

But the watchdog warned it may act in future if another infringement occurs.

Following the completion of an investigation into the breach, an ICO spokesman said: “After considering the organisation's response, the remedial measures introduced to address the errors that were made, and the limited number of times the information was accessed before it was removed, we have decided that no further action will be taken on this occasion. We will keep a record of this incident and may revisit it again if any similar problems occur.”

The details of 2,826 staff were disclosed working for the service covering Hampshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.

Following the breach SCAS said it had drafted an action plan to prevent the risk of it happening again.

It stressed the data was not patient or clinically related.