FOI/25/217

Request

Please provide the following information broken down by each full calendar year 2019-2023 inclusive, and all available information for the calendar year 2024 so far:

 

• The total number of women in labour who requested an epidural for pain relief
• The total number of women in labour who received an epidural for pain relief
• The number of women who did not receive the epidural requested
• The number of women who received the epidural within 30 minutes of making the request (0-30 minutes inclusive)
• The number of women who received the epidural within 60 minutes of making the request (0-60 minutes inclusive)
• The number of women who received the epidural later than 60 minutes after making the request (61 minutes and above)
• The longest recorded epidural waiting time

 

These figures should not include women who received an epidural during a planned or emergency Caesarean section.

 

If the information requested is only partially available (for example, if the Trust only records the number of women who received an epidural within 60 minutes of requesting it) or available with slightly different parameters (for example, if the Trust only records the number of women who received an epidural within 45 minutes of requesting it) then please provide this information.

 

Response

CLCH does hold information relating to your request, however, this information is published online. Therefore, for the purpose of section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), this part of our response serves as a formal notification of refusal of your request on the basis that exemption Section 21 of the FOIA applies.

Section 21 - Information Reasonably Accessible by Other Means

(1)Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 is exempt information.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1)—

(a)information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment, and

(b)information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.

Section 21 is an absolute exemption and where information falls within the scope of an absolute exemption, a public authority is not obliged to communicate it to an applicant and is also not obliged to comply with the duty to confirm or deny the existence of the information requested.

Having said that and in an effort to assist, please see the below in relation to your FOI request.

FOI/25/184 :: Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (clch.nhs.uk)

FOI/25/139 :: Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (clch.nhs.uk)