Provision of augmentative and alternative communication devices

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

Dear Leicestershire County and Rutland 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

Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust (PCT)

I am currently off sick although there may be times when I have some access to emails. Please note - my usual working days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Thanks - Janice Hopkins. If you need to speak or contact someone urgently during this period please contact Daljit Kaur Bains on 0116 295 8486. Please note - FOI requests will NOT be actioned from this mailbox, please forward ALL FOI requests via the PCT website.

Sent request to Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust (PCT) again, using a new contact address.

Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust (PCT)

Thank you for your email. I am currently out of the office and will be returning on Wednesday16th November 2011. If you need assistance in the meantime, please contact Caroline Newby (PA) on 0116 2951415 or Khatiza Issa (Corporate Governance Risk and Assurance Officer) who will be able to assist.

Kind regards

Daljit K. Bains
Associate Director of Corporate Governance

Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust (PCT)

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Dear Dr Robinson

Thank you for making a request under the Freedom of Information legislation.

Please find attached the FOI joint final response letter from NHS Leicester City & NHS Leicestershire County & Rutland which details how to redirect your request to the relevant organisation.

If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to make further contact with me.

Kind Regards

Karen Bunn
FOI Officer, Corporate Governance

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Dear Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust (PCT),

So having made another freedom of information request and waiting
the appropriate amount of time, I received the following
response...

"The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust does not hold
information regarding this FoI request. I am advised that this
information is held by the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust
(LPT)"

Would you mind explaining to me what has happened?

Yours faithfully,

Joe

Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust (PCT)

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Dear Sir

Please find attached a further copy of our final response letter dated 17 November 20111 reference the above request and your subsequent email dated 28 January 2012 below.

At the time the FOI Team were advised that the Trust did not hold the records or data you required relating to the provision of augmentative and alternative communication devices either from NHS Leicester City and NHS Leicestershire County and Rutland hence our redirect to our counterparts whom we were advised would be in a better position to help you.

However, please be rest assured that I shall make further contact with my colleagues to double check the information we have on record for you Dr Reddington and will be back to you shortly.

If you have any questions or queries relating to the above then please quote reference code: R111111LC and R151111LCR on all return correspondence.

Yours faithfully

K Bunn
FOI Officer, Corporate Governance

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