PCOS Diagnosis

NHS England did not have the information requested.

Dear Health Services,

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information in regards to PCOS diagnosis. I would like to know:

1. How many women in the UK have been diagnosed with PCOS each year for the last 5 tax years?

2. Categorised by age and ethnicity.

Please provide the above information digitally, preferably in the form of an excel spreadsheet.
If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under your Section 16 obligations, as to how I can refine my request to be included in the scope of the Act.

In any case, if you can identify ways that my request could be refined please provide further advice and assistance to indicate this.

I look forward to your response within 20 working days, as stipulated by the Act.

If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to clarify what I am asking for.

Yours faithfully,

Kirsty Card

CONTACTUS, England (NHS ENGLAND), NHS England

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email. **Please read the important information below**

Please refer to the information below on how the Customer Contact Centre
can help you.

Our normal working hours are 08:00 to 18:00 from Monday to Friday and we
regret the delay in reply over the non-working hours.

The Customer Contact Centre is experiencing a high volume of enquiries. We
aim to respond to all general enquiries within 10 working days. If you
have raised a new complaint, you will receive a separate acknowledgement
within 3 working days

In the meantime, you may find the following information helpful.

How can the Customer Contact Centre help me?

NHS England commissions or buys primary care services; for example, GPs,
dentists, opticians, and pharmacy services. We are also responsible for
prison healthcare, military health services, and some specialised
services. We can provide advice about accessing, giving feedback or making
a complaint about these services.

You may be able to find the answer you are looking for in
our [1]Frequently Asked Questions and our website explains how [2]to
feedback or make a complaint.

What if I have an enquiry or complaint about hospital care, NHS 111 or
out-of-hours GP services?

If your enquiry or complaint is about secondary care, this includes
hospital care, NHS 111 services, mental health services, out-of-hours
services and community services such as district nursing you’ll need to
contact your local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). You can find their
contact details using the [3]NHS Choices service finder.

Do you provide medical advice?

No. Our advisors and not clinically trained and are unable to provide
medical advice. If you require emergency medical attention, dial 999 or
attend your local Accident and Emergency department if you are able to do
so.

If you require non-urgent medical advice please contact your GP, local
walk-in or urgent healthcare centre, or call NHS 111. Calls are free from
landlines and mobile phones.

How do I report a change of name or address?

You should report a change of name or address to your GP practice so they
can update their records. If your new address is outside the practice’s
catchment area you may be asked to register with a new GP practice.

You should also advise your dentist or optician of a change of name or
address as they keep their own records.

Where can I find further information about NHS England?

You can find information about NHS England and our work on our [4]website.

How we use your information: Our privacy notices explains how we use,
share and store your personal information. You can find this on the NHS
England website [5]https://www.england.nhs.uk/privacy

 

show quoted sections

Dear NHS England,

The response is delayed.

Yours faithfully,

Kirsty

CONTACTUS, England (NHS ENGLAND), NHS England

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email. **Please read the important information below**

Please refer to the information below on how the Customer Contact Centre
can help you.

Our normal working hours are 08:00 to 18:00 from Monday to Friday and we
regret the delay in reply over the non-working hours.
The Customer Contact Centre is experiencing a high volume of enquiries. We
aim to respond to all general enquiries within 10 working days. If you
have raised a new complaint, you will receive a separate acknowledgement
within 3 working days

In the meantime, you may find the following information helpful.

How can the Customer Contact Centre help me?
NHS England commissions or buys primary care services; for example, GPs,
dentists, opticians, and pharmacy services. We are also responsible for
prison healthcare, military health services, and some specialised
services. We can provide advice about accessing, giving feedback or making
a complaint about these services.
You may be able to find the answer you are looking for in our Frequently
Asked Questions<https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/ho...>
and our website explains how to feedback or make a
complaint<https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/co...>.

What if I have an enquiry or complaint about hospital care, NHS 111 or
out-of-hours GP services?
If your enquiry or complaint is about secondary care, this includes
hospital care, NHS 111 services, mental health services, out-of-hours
services and community services such as district nursing you’ll need to
contact your local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). You can find their
contact details using the NHS Choices service
finder.<https://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/Clinic...>

Do you provide medical advice?
No. Our advisors and not clinically trained and are unable to provide
medical advice. If you require emergency medical attention, dial 999 or
attend your local Accident and Emergency department if you are able to do
so.
If you require non-urgent medical advice please contact your GP, local
walk-in or urgent healthcare centre, or call NHS 111. Calls are free from
landlines and mobile phones.

How do I report a change of name or address?
You should report a change of name or address to your GP practice so they
can update their records. If your new address is outside the practice’s
catchment area you may be asked to register with a new GP practice.
You should also advise your dentist or optician of a change of name or
address as they keep their own records.

Where can I find further information about NHS England?
You can find information about NHS England and our work on our
website.<https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/>

How we use your information: Our privacy notices explains how we use,
share and store your personal information. You can find this on the NHS
England website https://www.england.nhs.uk/privacy

show quoted sections

FOI, England (NHS ENGLAND), NHS England

1 Attachment

Dear Kirsty Card,

 

Re:      Freedom of Information Internal Review outcome (Our Ref:
FOI-057147 IR)

 

Thank you for your Freedom of Information (FOI) Internal Review request
dated 3 October 2018.

 

NHS England received three separate FOI requests from you, each dated 19
August 2018.

 

They read:

 

            Request one: “Life Risks of PCOS”

“I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request
the following information in regards to the life risks of PCOS. I would
like to know:

 

1.    How many women with PCOS have developed other complications such as
type 2 diabetes, heart disease etc.

 

2.    The ages these women developed these problems (e.g 14 -21, 22-29,
30-37, 38 - 46, 47 - 55, 55-60, 60+)

 

3.    How many women with PCOS have been through early menopause in the
last year?”

 

 

Request two: “PCOS and IVF”

“I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request
the following information in regards to PCOS and IVF. I would like to
know:

 

1.    How many women with PCOS have received IVF treatment each year for
the last 4 years?

 

2.    How many women were successful in getting pregnant with this method?

 

3.    How many women receive this treatment more than once?”

 

 

Request three: “PCOS diagnosis”

“I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request
the following information in regards to PCOS diagnosis. I would like to
know:

 

1.    How many women in the UK have been diagnosed with PCOS each year for
the last 5 tax years?

 

2.    Categorised by age and ethnicity.”

 

NHS England provided you with a single response to your requests on 21
August 2018. A copy of our response is attached.

 

Your Internal Review request was received by NHS England on 3 October
2018, and read:-

 

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

 

I am writing to request an internal review of NHS England's handling of my
FOI request 'Life Risks of PCOS'.

 

The response received had nothing to do with what I requested.”

 

The FOI Management team have reviewed your request and this letter
provides the outcome of this review. It may be helpful if we first explain
that an Internal Review looks at the handling of, and response given to, a
Freedom of Information request which has previously been made. The scope
of an Internal Review is therefore limited to considering whether the
request(s) was appropriately handled and whether the response given was
accurate and appropriate. An Internal Review cannot consider any new
queries not originally included in the relevant FOI request(s); these
should be submitted as new FOI requests via our Contact Centre.

 

It was noted that your original response was issued within the statutory
guidelines of 20 working days.

 

We have also assessed whether you received an appropriate response to your
request and considered the comments you have set out in your Internal
Review email.

 

We believe there may have been some confusion caused by the decision to
send you a single response to cover all three of your submitted requests.

 

On review, we see that you have used the website What Do They Know to
submit your request. Each time you submit a request via What Do They Know,
a unique email address is generated. When NHS England sent our final
response to you on 21 August 2018, it was sent only to the email address
generated by your request “PCOS and IVF”. We therefore consider it
possible that you did not realise that the information sent to you on 21
August 2018 applied across all three of your requests.

 

We apologise for any inconvenience as a result of this. To ensure clarity
on this point, we will be sending a copy of this Internal Review outcome,
to which is attached a copy of our original FOI response, to all three of
the auto-generated email addressed associated with your three requests. We
hope that this is helpful.

 

We have also considered whether the information provided to you in our
response of 21 August 2018 was appropriate.

 

It is the conclusion of this review that NHS England’s original response
was accurate and appropriate. As outlined in our original response, NHS
England does not hold information in relation to PCOS diagnoses, and as
such does not hold any of the other analysis you have requested. Our
original response provided you with advice and assistance on other
organisations which may hold information relevant to your request. We are
therefore satisfied that our response was appropriate.

 

We would also advise that as the information you have requested requires
multiple layers of analysis we consider it likely that the only means of
establishing this information would be a review of individual medical
files. This would need to be requested at individual GP practice or Trust
level. However, we consider it unlikely that any organisation would be
able to comply such a  request, either due to the time which would be
required (which is likely to be in excess of the appropriate limit set out
at section 12 of the FOI Act), or due to the risk of identifying
individuals who meet the scope of your enquiries.

 

In line with the above, our original response is upheld. We hope that the
additional explanation regarding our response has been helpful.

 

We hope that this addresses your concerns. However, if you are not content
with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information
Commissioner’s Office (ICO) can be contacted at:

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Email: [1][email address]  

Website: [2]www.ico.org.uk

 

Please note there is no charge for making an appeal.

 

Please do not reply to this email. This message has been sent from a
central mailbox. To communicate with NHS England regarding Freedom of
Information (FOI) requests, enquiries or complaints we ask these are sent
directly to NHS England’s customer contact centre. This is to ensure all
communications are progressed correctly. Their postal address, telephone
number and email details are as follows:- PO Box 16738, Redditch, B97 9PT;
0300 3 11 22 33, [3][NHS England request email] .

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Freedom of Information

Corporate Communications Team

Transformation and Corporate Operations Directorate

 

NHS England

PO Box 16738

REDDITCH

B97 9PT

 

Tel: 0300 311 22 33

Email: [NHS England request email]

 

show quoted sections