Requesting medical records 974/23
FOI Reference: 974/2023
Request:
Could you please provide information on;
- How many times police officers have requested information including, but not limited to medical records, from any of the below organisations over the past five years (2019 - 2023, inclusive?)
-Please break down the figures year by year.
-Please also break down the figures by organisation.
-Please also specify the type of request, where possible, eg. request for medical records / request for details of patients who have missed appointments.
The organisations are:
- The Gynae Centre
- The Portland Hospital
- BPAS
- City Health Care Partnership
- Harley Street Specialists Ltd
- MSI Reproductive Choices
- NUPAS
Response:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.
Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. The following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:
Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit
Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”
The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 217 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm
The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to the whole request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that this information is not routinely recorded in any consistent way, and therefore would require us to ask every officer in force if they have ever requested medical records and provide the relevant data to us.
Therefore, in order to ascertain if there is any information relevant to your request, every officer would need to be contacted and each response individually reviewed.
It has been established that there are a total of 1303 current police officers that would and it has been estimated that it would take an average of and at least 10 minutes to contact and review that correspondence. (This does not include the time estimated for the officer to review their own records to see if they hold any relevant data). The relevant time estimate is detailed below:
1303 officers x 10 minutes per officer = 217.1 hours
Time estimated for whole request= 217.1 hours
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact. You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 12/03/2024)