1988 - 1991 Factor Files

The request was partially successful.

Dear Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust,

I am writing to request under the freedom of information act any/all copies of administrative correspondence, letters and/or any other documentation including minutes of meetings etc that mention or relate to:

HIV / AIDS or Hepatitis, AND, Haemophilia / Haemophiliacs during the period January 1st 1988 – December 31st 1991.

Please note that I am NOT requesting patient medical records which would obviously be exempt, but administrative correspondence, letters and/or any other documentation including minutes of meetings etc.

Please supply material preferably in PDF format though any format will suffice in the interest of keeping costs / time to a minimum if this is easier.

Yours faithfully,

JJ Evans

FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Evans

Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act. The reference for this request is noted in the subject header above.

You will receive a response from us within 20 working days of receipt or an explanation as to why this is not possible.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

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FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Evans

We are sorry not to have provided you with the response to your request within 20 working days. We have at the same time received a request from the Infected Blood Inquiry for documents which we have provided to them. Some of those documents fall within the scope of your request but we need to review them to ensure that no relevant exemptions apply before disclosing them to you. We anticipate being in a position to send you a full response by 28 September 2018 at the latest.

With apologies for the delayed response.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

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FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Evans

Further to our email below, we apologise that we have not responded within our anticipated timescale as the review of these documents is taking longer than originally thought. We hope to be in a position to respond to you by 12 October.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

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Dear FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST),

Are you able to provide an update on this please? Many Thanks,

Yours sincerely,

JJ Evans

FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Evans

We are sorry that we have still not provided you with this information. This is in hand and we would anticipate responding to you no later than 9 November 2018.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Team
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

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FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Evans

We are sorry to advise that there is a further delay in responding to your
FOI request.  We anticipate being in a position to respond by Monday 18
November.

Apologies once again for this further delay.

Your sincerely

Alison Macdonald

Board secretary

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FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

6 Attachments

Dear Mr Evans

I do apologise for the delay in responding to you.  Please find enclosed
the response to your request.  

Your question

I am writing to request under the freedom of information act any/all
copies of administrative correspondence, letters and/or any other
documentation including minutes of meetings etc that mention or relate to:

HIV / AIDS or Hepatitis, AND, Haemophilia / Haemophiliacs during the
period January 1st 1988 – December 31st 1991.

Please note that I am NOT requesting patient medical records which would
obviously be exempt, but administrative correspondence, letters and/or any
other documentation including minutes of meetings etc.

Please supply material preferably in PDF format though any format will
suffice in the interest of keeping costs / time to a minimum if this is
easier.

The response      

I enclose the documents that we have been able to locate which are within
the scope of your request.  These have been redacted to exclude personal
data in accordance with S40 of the Freedom of Information Act.  Please
note that these documents have also been disclosed to the Infected Blood
Enquiry.  In the document titled “EGM UKHCDO redacted” we have also
excluded the contribution made at the meeting by a representative of the
Central Legal Service for the NHS in Scotland under section 42 (legal
professional privilege) which protects information created in order to
seek or provide legal advice.

Open Government License

The trust allows you to reuse this information under the Open Government
License found at the following link. 

Your appeal rights

Once again we apologise for the delay in responding to you, but we hope
that you will be satisfied with our response to your request, if not you
may ask us to review our decision in which case you should write to Ms
Emma Kearney, director of public affairs and communications, Royal Free
London NHS Foundation Trust, Pond Street, London  NW3 2QG, explaining what
you would like us to review and including your reference number.  If you
are not satisfied with the internal review, you can appeal to the
Information Commissioner.  The contact details are: Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF, telephone 01625 545 700 or see [1]www.ico.org.uk

Yours sincerely

Alison Macdonald

Board Secretary

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Dear Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust's handling of my FOI request '1988 - 1991 Factor Files'.

In the document titled “EGM UKHCDO redacted” you excluded the contribution made at the meeting by a representative of the Central Legal Service for the NHS in Scotland under section 42 (legal professional privilege) which protects information created in order to seek or provide legal advice. However this exemption is invalid because this document is now a Historical Record. Section 63 of the FOIA states: "(1)Information contained in a historical record cannot be exempt information by virtue of section F1... 30(1), 32, 33, 35, [F236, 37(1)(a), 42 or 43 ][F2or 42]." In this case, please provide an unrestricted version of this document.

Yours faithfully,

JJ Evans

FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Evans

Thank you for your email requesting an internal review of your request made under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I wish to advise you that the terms of reference for the review are:

•whether the exemptions were correctly applied

In accordance with the Information Commissioner’s guidance, the process will result in a fresh decision based on all the available evidence that is relevant to the date of the request, not just a review of the first decision

We aim to complete all internal reviews within 20 working days, although more complex cases may take longer. Where internal reviews go over 20 working days, we will keep you informed of progress.

If, once you have been informed of the outcome of the internal review, you are still dissatisfied; you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office. We will explain the process for doing this when we tell you of the result of the review.

If you have any queries, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

FOI Team
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

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FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Evans

I am writing to confirm that we are dealing with your request for an internal review of the handling of this FOI request. We aim to complete internal reviews within 20 working days. However, we are in the process of seeking the views of a third party and we would anticipate the review being concluded by Friday 17 May at the latest.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

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FOI, Rf (ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST), Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

1 Attachment

  • Attachment

    E G M UKHCDO with redactions applied revised following internal review.pdf

    864K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Evans

Thank you for your request dated 5 April 2019 asking for an internal review in respect to the response we provided to your FOI request.

As previously advised, the terms of reference for the review were to review whether the exemptions were correctly applied.

The review has been undertaken by the deputy head of legal services (solicitor) who also sought independent legal advice.

As you have identified, where a document is over 20 years old, Section 62 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides that certain exemptions are no longer applicable as the information is classed as historical. Section 62 applies to information which would otherwise be exempt under the Section 42 exemption (legal privilege) and confirms that in effect the trust cannot apply Section 42 to a document which is over 20 years old. Section 62(2) does not apply where the information in question is held with documents created more recently (within the last twenty years) but the minutes in question were held with documents created at the same time and therefore Section 62 would apply.

The redacted information was provided to the Haemophilia Centre by a third party (the Central Legal Service for NHS Scotland) and summarises the basis of the claims brought against them. We therefore sought the views of NHS Scotland and they have confirmed that they have no objection to our providing you with the redacted section.

Therefore the outcome of this internal review is that we were incorrect to apply the section 42 exemption to that section of the minutes and we therefore enclose a further version of the document with that redaction removed.

We apologise that the exemption was incorrectly applied and trust that this concludes matters to your satisfaction. We also apologise for the short delay caused by the need to gain the views of NHS Scotland.

As previously advised, if you are not satisfied with the outcome of this internal review you may now apply directly to the Information Commissioner, who can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF www.ico.org.uk.

Yours sincerely

Emma Kearney
Chief communications officer

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