FOI/25/069

Your request:

 I would like to ask, under the Freedom of Information Act that you provide me with the following information for the table below. 

Please respond by populating the table below:

	FOI	Non medical Subject Access Requests	Medical Subject Access Requests	PALS Complaints	Other complaints
Number of cases/requests received in the last calendar year (2023)
Of those requests/cases in 2023, the number answered within time limits for the request/case.
System/tool used to process requests/cases e.g. spreadsheets, in-house tools, specialist software (please name)
Team/department  that processes the request (name of team/department)

 

Response

Having completed enquiries within CLCH in respect of Section 1(1)(a), CLCH does hold information relating to your request, however, the obligation of Section 1(1)(b) cannot be met as CLCH does not hold all the information requested in a format that allows it to be retrieved within the time and cost limits of FOI.

When responding to a request for information under the terms of the FOIA, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if the authority estimates that the cost of the retrieval of the information requested would be in excess of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work). The costs criteria relates to a request in its entirety, which means that if we cannot retrieve all of the information requested within the costs limit, we are not obliged to retrieve any of the information requested.

Section 12(1) of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged to:

“…comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The following explanation outlines the difficulty CLCH has in answering your request:

IG does not record if a SAR is medical or non medical request. To answer your request we would, therefore, have to manually review each request to determine if medical or non-medical. With there being a total of 914 SAR for 2023, this will exceed the cost/time limit set out in FOIA. 

 

Having said that, and in an effort to assist, although excess cost removes the Trust’s obligations under the FOIA, please see below.

 

	FOI	Subject Access Requests	PALS Complaints	Other complaints
Number of cases/requests received in the last calendar year (2023)	347	914	543	168
Of those requests/cases in 2023, the number answered within time limits for the request/case.	331	910	543	168
System/tool used to process requests/cases e.g. spreadsheets, in-house tools, specialist software (please name)	Spreadsheet	Spreadsheet	Datix	Datix and in-house tools.
Team/department  that processes the request (name of team/department)	Information Governance Team	Information Governance Team	Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)	Complaints Team