Provision of augmentative and alternative communication devices

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust (PCT) should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust (PCT),

I am an academic researcher, attempting to assess the provision of augmentative and alternative communication devices by the NHS. Would you please send me details of augmentative and alternative communication devices supplied/purchased by your trust between 31st March 2006 and 1st April 2011. I would like the information broken down by both product name (So for example Dynavox Xpress, iPod touch with TapToTalk, BigMack) and by year. I would like information for both children and adults, but I don't require a breakdown by age.

I attempting to find out how many people who have poor or no speech have a speech aid, in particular electronic speech aids, and I would like to know how many have been supplied by the trust during the last five years.

Deven PCT have helpfully give examples on a previous request. The format they used was

2005/06
4 X Digital Electronic Larynxes (Servox)
2 x Listen To Me
2 x Lightwriters
1 x Dynawrite
1 x Dynamo
1 x Falck Voice Amplifier
1 x Lions Speech Aid
1 x Go Talk
1 x Little Mack

2006/07
9 x Digital Electronic Larynxes (Servox)
2 x Lightwriters
1 x mini Printer
2 x The Grid software
2 x Falck Voice Amplifiers
1 x Listen To Me
1 x Textphone
1 x Talking Symbols Notepad

and this would do nicely for me. Other excellent formats were provided by:
Bradford and Airedale Teaching PCT
(http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...)
Bromley PCT (http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...)
Bristol PCT ( http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...)
and Central Lancashire PCT
(http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/au...)

Just to make the process more efficient for you guys - it would be great to clarify a couple of things at this stage - I am aware that some trusts make use of commissioning trusts to do the actual purchase of the devices; when I have contacted the commissioning trusts I've been often redirected back to the PCT because the paperwork for previous years have been stored at the PCT - this redirection must be causing additional work for both trusts in the long run and it would be great to avoid it
(http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/au...
is an example of the problem)

Also, and again to make life easier for you, I should point about that since this request is being made via whatdotheyknow.com - email addresses are stripped out of replies to protect your privacy (because the responses are all available to public view- if you are to redirect my request to another body then it's ideal to just give the name of the body rather than just an email address

Yours faithfully,

Dr Joseph Reddington

NCLondon, FOI, Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust (PCT)

Dear Dr Reddington

Thank you for your request for information received on 11 November 2011.
This email is to acknowledge that your request is being handled under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your request will be answered within 20 working days.

We publish some of our responses to FOI requests and these are available
on our [1]disclosure log at
[2]http://www.ncl.nhs.uk/about/freedom-of-i...

If you have any queries about this request, please do not hesitate to
contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any
future communications.

 
Kind regards
 
Abeeda Ladha
FOI Coordinator
NHS North Central London
5th Floor, Drummond Street wing, Stephenson House
Tel: 020 7685 6286
[3]www.ncl.nhs.uk

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NCLondon, FOI, Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust (PCT)

1 Attachment

Dear Dr Reddington

Thank you for your enquiry requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Please find attached our response to your request to NHS Haringey.

NHS North Central London would appreciate it if you could take the time to evaluate the response to your request for information. It will allow improvements to be made to the service if necessary. It should not take longer than 5 minutes to complete and is accessible at http://www.ncl.nhs.uk/about/freedom-of-i...

Thank you in advance for your feedback.


Kind regards

Abeeda Ladha
FOI Coordinator
NHS North Central London
5th Floor, Drummond Street wing, Stephenson House

Tel: 020 7685 6286
www.ncl.nhs.uk

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Dear NCLondon, FOI,

So having now waited for my FOI from Whittington Health NHS as your advised, I get the following response from them...

"We have not ordered any such product in the time since we took over ordering for Haringey & Islington PCT in April 2011. For information prior to this time, I advise you that due to the nature of the information that you are seeking, your request would be more appropriately addressed to our local PCTs, NHS Islington and NHS Haringey, you will find the FOI contacts on their websites below:"

Could you explain to me what's going on? I'm really confused about which trust has the data I'm looking for...

Yours sincerely,

Joe

NCLondon, FOI, Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust (PCT)

Dear Joe
 
I will look into this again for you and will respond as soon as I have
anything to report on.
 
 
Kind regards
 
Abeeda Ladha
FOI Coordinator
NHS North Central London
5th Floor, Drummond Street wing, Stephenson House
Tel: 020 7685 6286
[1]www.ncl.nhs.uk

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Joe [mailto:[FOI #92920 email]]
Sent: Fri 03/02/2012 16:55
To: NCLondon, FOI
Subject: RE: Freedom of Information request - Provision of augmentative
and alternative communication devices

     Dear NCLondon, FOI,
    
     So having now waited for my FOI from Whittington Health NHS as your
     advised, I get the following response from them...
    
     "We have not ordered any such product in the time since we took
     over ordering for Haringey & Islington PCT in April 2011. For
     information prior to this time, I advise you that due to the nature
     of the information that you are seeking, your request would be more
     appropriately addressed to our local PCTs, NHS Islington and NHS
     Haringey, you will find the FOI contacts on their websites below:"
    
     Could you explain to me what's going on? I'm really confused about
     which trust has the data I'm looking for...
    
     Yours sincerely,
    
     Joe
    
    

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NCLondon, FOI, Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust (PCT)

Dear Joe

After extensive searches for this information, I have managed to find out that this information for NHS Haringey is held by Whittington Health. During the split of commissioning and provider, this information was transferred to Whittington Health with the transfer of Haringey community services. I have liaised with the FOI team at Whittington who have informed me that they are processing your request and will respond to you directly.

Our sincere apologies for the confusion caused.

Kind regards

Abeeda Ladha
FOI Coordinator
NHS North Central London
5th Floor, Drummond Street wing, Stephenson House

Tel: 020 7685 6286
www.ncl.nhs.uk

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Dear NCLondon, FOI,

Thanks for following this up :)

Yours sincerely,

Joe