Dear Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (Northern Ireland),

To the best of your knowledge;

(1) Please can you advise, what is the role and function of the neurosciences department in the Belfast Trust?

(2a) Since 2011, how much funding did the neurosciences department receive?
(b) How much of that funding was directly/indirectly attributed to the work of Dr. Michael Watt?

(3a) Since 2011, how many research/studies/trials was Dr. Watt a part of, within the neurology/neurosciences departments?
(b) Please provide a breakdown by start date, study title, end date (where applicable).

Yours faithfully,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear Turner, Clark,

This is overdue. Please can you provide a response?

Yours sincerely,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear Turner, Clark,

We are now into the second week and still no response. Please can you provide a full response?

Yours sincerely,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear Turner, Clark,

Please can you clearly outline the reason for delay? Repeatedly, FOI's submitted by this group, are delayed or not appropriately answered. Is there a reason for this?

Yours sincerely,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (Northern Ireland),

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (Northern Ireland)'s handling of my FOI request 'Neurosciences'.

This information is required in order to produce yearly financials.

1) Which software do you use to conduct this manual trawl?
2) What software did it replace?
3) What year was the new software implemented?
4) How much did the new software cost?
5) Why doesn't this software have a dropdown option to view the financials per department?
6) Who manages the accounts for the neurosciences department?
7) Why did you destroy records that you are legally required to hold on to?
8) Please clearly outline how it would take 18 hours/cost more than £450 to view these records?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/n...

Yours faithfully,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear PublicLiaison-SM,

This pertains to FOI/25228. Please note, that it has taken 8 weeks for you to send a response refusing this information.

Yours sincerely,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear Hanna, Arlene,

The semantics used to avoid answering questions, is what is resulting in the additional time needed to answer questions than if the original questions were answered correctly to begin with. Allow me to provide a summary;

(2a) Since 2011, how much funding did the neurosciences department receive?
(b) How much of that funding was directly/indirectly attributed to the work of Dr. Michael Watt?

This information is not held centrally and would require a manual trawl of allocation letters to identify funding which has been allocated to the Neurosciences Department. Belfast Trust is unable to extract this financial information on our systems.This is in part due to the fact that the Belfast Trust changed systems a few years back and does not have access to the historical financial detail. We estimate that it would take in excess of 18 hours of time to carry out the manual trawl of records which would be necessary to obtain this information.

(b) How much of that funding was directly/indirectly attributed to the work of Dr. Michael Watt?
The Belfast Trust is unable to extract this financial information as our systems. This is in part due to the fact that Belfast Trust changed systems a few years back and does not have access to the historical financial detail. We estimate that it would take in excess of 18 hours of time to carry out the manual trawl of records which would be necessary to obtain this information.

(3a) Since 2011, how many research/studies/trials was Dr. Watt a part of, within the neurology/neurosciences departments?
Belfast Trust does not hold this information. However, it should be possible for you to find all publications through searching publically available databases such as pubmed.com.
(b) Please provide a breakdown by start date, study title, end date (where applicable).
Belfast Trust does not hold this information.However, it should be possible for you to find all publications through searching publically available databases such as pubmed.com

The suggestion that the Belfast Trust uses a paper filing system for financial records is quite frankly preposterous. The further suggestion that there is no clinical trial database and it would take more than 18 hours to search through letters, is beyond what any reasonable person would be expected to believe. This further tells that the "Independent Neurology Inquiry" has not asked for this information, once again not following key lines of inquiry.

Please escalate this complaint to senior management. I would like to know
(i) What software is used for financials for the neuroscience department
(ii) The name of the senior manager who manages the accounts
(iii) How financial records are managed within the neurosciences department

Yours sincerely,

lyndsay eccleston